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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Stella Fregelius, by H. Rider Haggard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Stella Fregelius
+
+Author: H. Rider Haggard
+
+Release Date: October 28, 2002 [eBook #6051]
+[Most recently updated: June 28, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Bickers, Dagny and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STELLA FREGELIUS ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Stella Fregelius
+
+A TALE OF THREE DESTINIES
+
+by H. Rider Haggard
+
+First Published 1904.
+
+
+     “Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
+     Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
+     Subjecit pedibus; strepitumque Acherontis avari.”
+
+
+Contents
+
+  DEDICATION 
+  AUTHOR’S NOTE 
+  STELLA FREGELIUS 
+ CHAPTER I. MORRIS, MARY, AND THE AEROPHONE
+ CHAPTER II. THE COLONEL AND SOME REFLECTIONS
+ CHAPTER III. “POOR PORSON”
+ CHAPTER IV. MARY PREACHES AND THE COLONEL PREVAILS
+ CHAPTER V. A PROPOSAL AND A PROMISE
+ CHAPTER VI. THE GOOD DAYS
+ CHAPTER VII. BEAULIEU
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE SUNK ROCKS AND THE SINGER
+ CHAPTER IX. MISS FREGELIUS
+ CHAPTER X. DAWN AND THE LAND
+ CHAPTER XI. A MORNING SERVICE
+ CHAPTER XII. MR. LAYARD’S WOOING
+ CHAPTER XIII. TWO QUESTIONS, AND THE ANSWER
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE RETURN OF THE COLONEL
+ CHAPTER XV. THREE INTERVIEWS
+ CHAPTER XVI. A MARRIAGE AND AFTER
+ CHAPTER XVII. THE RETURN OF MARY
+ CHAPTER XVIII. TWO EXPLANATIONS
+ CHAPTER XIX. MORRIS, THE MARRIED MAN
+ CHAPTER XX. STELLA’S DIARY
+ CHAPTER XXI. THE END OF STELLA’S DIARY
+ CHAPTER XXII. THE EVIL GATE
+ CHAPTER XXIII. STELLA COMES
+ CHAPTER XXIV. DREAMS AND THE SLEEP
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+My Dear John Berwick,
+
+When you read her history in MS. you thought well of “Stella Fregelius”
+and urged her introduction to the world. Therefore I ask you, my severe
+and accomplished critic, to accept the burden of a book for which you
+are to some extent responsible. Whatever its fate, at least it has
+pleased you and therefore has not been written quite in vain.
+
+H. Rider Haggard.
+
+Ditchingham,
+
+25th August, 1903.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR’S NOTE
+
+
+The author feels that he owes some apology to his readers for his
+boldness in offering to them a modest story which is in no sense a
+romance of the character that perhaps they expect from him; which has,
+moreover, few exciting incidents and no climax of the accustomed order,
+since the end of it only indicates its real beginning.
+
+His excuse must be that, in the first instance, he wrote it purely to
+please himself and now publishes it in the hope that it may please some
+others. The problem of such a conflict, common enough mayhap did we but
+know it, between a departed and a present personality, of which the
+battle-ground is a bereaved human heart and the prize its complete
+possession; between earthly duty and spiritual desire also; was one
+that had long attracted him. Finding at length a few months of leisure,
+he treated the difficult theme, not indeed as he would have wished to
+do, but as best he could.
+
+He may explain further that when he drafted this book, now some five
+years ago, instruments of the nature of the “aerophone” were not so
+much talked of as they are to-day. In fact this aerophone has little to
+do with his characters or their history, and the main motive of its
+introduction to his pages was to suggest how powerless are all such
+material means to bring within mortal reach the transcendental and
+unearthly ends which, with their aid, were attempted by Morris Monk.
+
+These, as that dreamer learned, must be far otherwise obtained, whether
+in truth and spirit, or perchance, in visions only.
+
+1903.
+
+
+
+
+STELLA FREGELIUS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+MORRIS, MARY, AND THE AEROPHONE
+
+
+Above, the sky seemed one vast arc of solemn blue, set here and there
+with points of tremulous fire; below, to the shadowy horizon, stretched
+the plain of the soft grey sea, while from the fragrances of night and
+earth floated a breath of sleep and flowers.
+
+A man leaned on the low wall that bordered the cliff edge, and looked
+at sea beneath and sky above. Then he contemplated the horizon, and
+murmured some line heard or learnt in childhood, ending “where earth
+and heaven meet.”
+
+“But they only seem to meet,” he reflected to himself, idly. “If I
+sailed to that spot they would be as wide apart as ever. Yes, the stars
+would be as silent and as far away, and the sea quite as restless and
+as salt. Yet there must be a place where they do meet. No, Morris, my
+friend, there is no such place in this world, material or moral; so
+stick to facts, and leave fancies alone.”
+
+But that night this speculative man felt in the mood for fancies, for
+presently he was staring at one of the constellations, and saying to
+himself, “Why not? Well, why not? Granted force can travel through
+ether,—whatever ether is—why should it stop travelling? Give it time
+enough, a few seconds, or a few minutes or a few years, and why should
+it not reach that star? Very likely it does, only there it wastes
+itself. What would be needed to make it serviceable? Simply this—that
+on the star there should dwell an Intelligence armed with one of my
+instruments, when I have perfected them, or the secret of them. Then
+who knows what might happen?” and he laughed a little to himself at the
+vagary.
+
+From all of which wandering speculations it may be gathered that Morris
+Monk was that rather common yet problematical person, an inventor who
+dreamed dreams.
+
+An inventor, in truth, he was, although as yet he had never really
+invented anything. Brought up as an electrical engineer, after a very
+brief experience of his profession he had fallen victim to an idea and
+become a physicist. This was his idea, or the main point of it—for its
+details do not in the least concern our history: that by means of a
+certain machine which he had conceived, but not as yet perfected, it
+would be possible to complete all existing systems of aerial
+communication, and enormously to simplify their action and enlarge
+their scope. His instruments, which were wireless telephones—aerophones
+he called them—were to be made in pairs, twins that should talk only to
+each other. They required no high poles, or balloons, or any other
+cumbrous and expensive appliance; indeed, their size was no larger than
+that of a rather thick despatch box. And he had triumphed; the thing
+was done—in all but one or two details.
+
+For two long years he had struggled with these, and still they eluded
+him. Once he had succeeded—that was the dreadful thing. Once for a
+while the instruments had worked, and with a space of several miles
+between them. But—this was the maddening part of it—he had never been
+able to repeat the exact conditions; or, rather, to discover precisely
+what they were. On that occasion he had entrusted one of his machines
+to his first cousin, Mary Porson, a big girl with her hair still down
+her back, rather idle in disposition, but very intelligent, when she
+chose. Mary, for the most part, had been brought up at her father’s
+house, close by. Often, too, she stayed with her uncle for weeks at a
+stretch, so at that time Morris was as intimate with her as a man of
+eight and twenty usually is with a relative in her teens.
+
+The arrangement on this particular occasion was that she should take
+the machine—or aerophone, as its inventor had named it—to her home. The
+next morning, at the appointed hour, as Morris had often done before,
+he tried to effect communication, but without result. On the following
+day, at the same hour, he tried again, when, to his astonishment,
+instantly the answer came back. Yes, as distinctly as though she were
+standing by his side, he heard his cousin Mary’s voice.
+
+“Are you there?” he said, quite hopelessly, merely as a matter of
+form—of very common form—and well-nigh fell to the ground when he
+received the reply:
+
+“Yes, yes, but I have just been telegraphed for to go to Beaulieu; my
+mother is very ill.”
+
+“What is the matter with her?” he asked; and she replied:
+
+“Inflammation of the lungs—but I must stop; I can’t speak any more.”
+Then came some sobs and silence.
+
+That same afternoon, by Mary’s direction, the aerophone was brought
+back to him in a dog-cart, and three days later he heard that her
+mother, Mrs. Porson, was dead.
+
+Some months passed, and when they met again, on her return from the
+Riviera, Morris found his cousin changed. She had parted from him a
+child, and now, beneath the shadow of the wings of grief, suddenly she
+had become a woman. Moreover, the best and frankest part of their
+intimacy seemed to have vanished. There was a veil between them. Mary
+thought of little, and at this time seemed to care for no one except
+her mother, who was dead. And Morris, who had loved the child, recoiled
+somewhat from the new-born woman. It may be explained that he was
+afraid of women. Still, with an eye to business, he spoke to her about
+the aerophone; and, so far as her memory served her, she confirmed all
+the details of their short conversation across the gulf of empty space.
+
+“You see,” he said, trembling with excitement, “I have got it at last.”
+
+“It looks like it,” she answered, wearily, her thoughts already far
+away. “Why shouldn’t you? There are so many odd things of the sort. But
+one can never be sure; it mightn’t work next time.”
+
+“Will you try again?” he asked.
+
+“If you like,” she answered; “but I don’t believe I shall hear anything
+now. Somehow—since that last business—everything seems different to
+me.”
+
+“Don’t be foolish,” he said; “you have nothing to do with the hearing;
+it is my new receiver.”
+
+“I daresay,” she replied; “but, then, why couldn’t you make it work
+with other people?”
+
+Morris answered nothing. He, too, wondered why.
+
+Next morning they made the experiment. It failed. Other experiments
+followed at intervals, most of which were fiascos, although some were
+partially successful. Thus, at times Mary could hear what he said. But
+except for a word or two, and now and then a sentence, he could not
+hear her whom, when she was still a child and his playmate, once he had
+heard so clearly.
+
+“Why is it?” he said, a year or two later, dashing his fist upon the
+table in impotent rage. “It has been; why can’t it be?”
+
+Mary turned her large blue eyes up to the ceiling, and reflectively
+rubbed her dimpled chin with a very pretty finger.
+
+“Isn’t that the kind of question they used to ask oracles?” she asked
+lazily—“Oh! no, it was the oracles themselves that were so vague. Well,
+I suppose because ‘was’ is as different from ‘is’ as ‘as’ is from
+‘shall be.’ We are changed, Cousin; that’s all.”
+
+He pointed to his patent receiver, and grew angry.
+
+“Oh, it isn’t the receiver,” she said, smoothing her curling hair;
+“it’s us. You don’t understand me a bit—not now—and that’s why you
+can’t hear me. Take my advice, Morris”—and she looked at him
+sharply—“when you find a woman whom you can hear on your patent
+receiver, you had better marry her. It will be a good excuse for
+keeping her at a distance afterwards.”
+
+Then he lost his temper; indeed, he raved, and stormed, and nearly
+smashed the patent receiver in his fury. To a scientific man, let it be
+admitted, it was nothing short of maddening to be told that the
+successful working of his instrument, to the manufacture of which he
+had given eight years of toil and study, depended upon some
+pre-existent sympathy between the operators of its divided halves. If
+that were so, what was the use of his wonderful discovery, for who
+could ensure a sympathetic correspondent? And yet the fact remained
+that when, in their playmate days, he understood his cousin Mary, and
+when her quiet, indolent nature had been deeply moved by the shock of
+the news of her mother’s peril, the aerophone had worked. Whereas now,
+when she had become a grown-up young lady, he did not understand her
+any longer—he, whose heart was wrapped up in his experiments, and who
+by nature feared the adult members of her sex, and shrank from them;
+when, too, her placid calm was no longer stirred, work it would not.
+
+She laughed at his temper; then grew serious, and said:
+
+“Don’t get angry, Morris. After all, there are lots of things that you
+and I can’t understand, and it isn’t odd that you should have tumbled
+across one of them. If you think of it, nobody understands anything.
+They know that certain things happen, and how to make them happen; but
+they don’t know why they happen, or why, as in your case, when they
+ought to happen, they won’t.”
+
+“It is all very well for you to be philosophical,” he answered, turning
+upon her; “but can’t you see, Mary, that the thing there is my life’s
+work? It is what I have given all my strength and all my brain to make,
+and if it fails in the end—why, then I fail too, once and forever. And
+I have made it talk. It talked perfectly between this place and
+Seaview, and now you stand there and tell me that it won’t work any
+more because I don’t understand you. Then what am I to do?”
+
+“Try to understand me, if you think it worth while, which I don’t; or
+go on experimenting,” she answered. “Try to find some substance which
+is less exquisitely sensitive, something a little grosser, more in key
+with the material world; or to discover someone whom you do understand.
+Don’t lose heart; don’t be beaten after all these years.”
+
+“No,” he answered, “I don’t unless I die,” and he turned to go.
+
+“Morris,” she said, in a softer voice, “I am lazy, I know. Perhaps that
+is why I adore people who can work. So, although you don’t think
+anything of me, I will do my honest best to get into sympathy with you
+again; yes, and to help in any way I can. No; it’s not a joke. I would
+give a great deal to see the thing a success.”
+
+“Why do you say I don’t think anything of you, Mary? Of course, it
+isn’t true. Besides, you are my cousin, and we have always been good
+friends since you were a little thing.”
+
+She laughed. “Yes, and I suppose that as you had no brothers or sisters
+they taught you to pray for your cousin, didn’t they? Oh, I know all
+about it. It is my unfortunate sex that is to blame; while I was a mere
+tom-boy it was different. No one can serve two masters, can they? You
+have chosen to serve a machine that won’t go, and I daresay that you
+are wise. Yes, I think that it is the better part—until you find
+someone that will make it go—and then you would adore her—by
+aerophone!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE COLONEL AND SOME REFLECTIONS
+
+
+Presently Morris heard a step upon the lawn, and turned to see his
+father sauntering towards him. Colonel Monk, C.B., was an elderly man,
+over sixty indeed, but still of an upright and soldierly bearing. His
+record was rather distinguished. In his youth he had served in the
+Crimea, and in due course was promoted to the command of a regiment of
+Guards. After this, certain diplomatic abilities caused him to be sent
+to one of the foreign capitals as military attache, and in reward of
+this service, on retiring, he was created a Companion of the Bath. In
+appearance he was handsome also; in fact, much better looking than his
+son, with his iron-grey hair, his clear-cut features, somewhat marred
+in effect by a certain shiftiness of the mouth, and his large dark
+eyes. Morris had those dark eyes also—they redeemed his face from
+plainness, for otherwise it showed no beauty, the features being too
+irregular, the brow too prominent, and the mouth too large. Yet it
+could boast what, in the case of a man at any rate, is better than
+beauty—spirituality, and a certain sympathetic charm. It was not the
+face which was so attractive, but rather the intelligence, the
+personality that shone through it, as the light shines through the horn
+panes of some homely, massive lantern. Speculative eyes of the sort
+that seem to search horizons and gather knowledge there, but shrink
+from the faces of women; a head of brown hair, short cut but untidy, an
+athletic, manlike form to which, bizarrely enough, a slight stoop, the
+stoop of a student, seemed to give distinction, and hands slender and
+shapely as those of an Eastern—such were the characteristics of Morris
+Monk, or at least those of them that the observer was apt to notice.
+
+“Hullo! Morris, are you star-gazing there?” said Colonel Monk, with a
+yawn. “I suppose that I must have fallen asleep after dinner—that comes
+of stopping too long at once in the country and drinking port. I notice
+you never touch it, and a good thing, too. There, my cigar is out.
+Now’s the time for that new electric lighter of yours which I can never
+make work.”
+
+Morris fumbled in his pocket and produced the lighter. Then he said:
+
+“I am sorry, father; but I believe I forgot to charge it.”
+
+“Ah! that’s just like you, if you will forgive my saying so. You take
+any amount of trouble to invent and perfect a thing, but when it comes
+to making use of it, then you forget,” and with a little gesture of
+impatience the Colonel turned aside to light a match from a box which
+he had found in the pocket of his cape.
+
+“I am sorry,” said Morris, with a sigh, “but I am afraid it is true.
+When one’s mind is very fully occupied with one thing——” and he broke
+off.
+
+“Ah! that’s it, Morris, that’s it,” said the Colonel, seating himself
+upon a garden chair; “this hobby-horse of yours is carrying you—to the
+devil, and your family with you. I don’t want to be rough, but it is
+time that I spoke plain. Let’s see, how long is it since you left the
+London firm?”
+
+“Nine years this autumn,” answered Morris, setting his mouth a little,
+for he knew what was coming. The port drunk after claret had upset his
+father’s digestion and ruffled his temper. This meant that to
+him—Morris—Fate had appointed a lecture.
+
+“Nine years, nine wasted years, idled and dreamt away in a village upon
+the eastern coast. It is a large slice out of a man’s life, my boy. By
+the time that I was your age I had done a good deal,” said his father,
+meditatively. When he meant to be disagreeable it was the Colonel’s
+custom to become reflective.
+
+“I can’t admit that,” answered Morris, in his light, quick voice—“I
+mean I can’t admit that my time has either been idled away or wasted.
+On the contrary, father, I have worked very hard, as I did at college,
+and as I have always done, with results which, without boasting, I may
+fairly call glorious—yes, glorious—for when they are perfected they
+will change the methods of communication throughout the whole world.”
+As he spoke, forgetting the sharp vexation of the moment, his face was
+irradiated with light—like some evening cloud on which the sun strikes
+suddenly.
+
+Watching him out of the corner of his eye, even in that low moonlight,
+his father saw those fires of enthusiasm shine and die upon his son’s
+face, and the sight vexed him. Enthusiasm, as he conceived, perhaps
+with justice, had been the ruin of Morris. Ceasing to be reflective,
+his tone became cruel.
+
+“Do you really think, Morris, that the world wishes to have its methods
+of communication revolutionised? Aren’t there enough telephones and
+phonograms and aerial telegraphs already? It seems to me that you
+merely wish to add a new terror to existence. However, there is no need
+to pursue an academical discussion, since this wretched machine of
+yours, on which you have wasted so much time, appears to be a miserable
+failure.”
+
+Now, to throw the non-success of his invention into the teeth of the
+inventor, especially when that inventor knows that it is successful
+really, although just at present it does not happen to work, is a very
+deadly insult. Few indeed could be deadlier, except, perhaps, that of
+the cruelty which can suggest to a woman that no man will ever look at
+her because of her plainness and lack of attraction; or the coarse
+taunt which, by shameless implication, unjustly accuses the soldier of
+cowardice, the diplomat of having betrayed the secrets of his country,
+or the lawyer of having sold his brief. All the more, therefore, was it
+to Morris’s credit that he felt the lash sting without a show of
+temper.
+
+“I have tried to explain to you, father,” he began, struggling to free
+his clear voice from the note of indignation.
+
+“Of course you have, Morris; don’t trouble yourself to repeat that long
+story. But even if you were successful—which you are not—er—I cannot
+see the commercial use of this invention. As a scientific toy it may be
+very well, though, personally, I should prefer to leave it alone,
+since, if you go firing off your thoughts and words into space, how do
+you know who will answer them, or who will hear them?”
+
+“Well, father, as you understand all about it, it is no use my
+explaining any further. It is pretty late; I think I will be turning
+in.”
+
+“I had hoped,” replied the Colonel, in an aggrieved voice, “that you
+might have been able to spare me a few minutes’ conversation. For some
+weeks I have been seeking an opportunity to talk to you; but somehow
+your arduous occupations never seem to leave you free for ordinary
+social intercourse.”
+
+“Certainly,” replied Morris, “though I don’t quite know why you should
+say that. I am always about the place if you want me.” But in his heart
+he groaned, guessing what was coming.
+
+“Yes; but you are ever working at your chemicals and machinery in the
+old chapel; or reading those eternal books; or wandering about rapt in
+contemplation of the heavens; so that, in short, I seldom like to
+trouble you with my mundane but necessary affairs.”
+
+Morris made no answer; he was a very dutiful son and humble-spirited.
+Those who pit their intelligences against the forces of Nature, and try
+to search out her secrets, become humble. He could not altogether
+respect his father; the gulf between them was too wide and deep. But
+even at his present age of three and thirty he considered it a duty to
+submit himself to him and his vagaries. Outside of other reasons, his
+mother had prayed him to do so almost with her last breath, and, living
+or dead, Morris loved his mother.
+
+“Perhaps you are not aware,” went on Colonel Monk, after a solemn
+pause, “that the affairs of this property are approaching a crisis.”
+
+“I know something, but no details,” answered Morris. “I have not liked
+to interfere,” he added apologetically.
+
+“And I have not liked to trouble you with such sordid matters,”
+rejoined his parent, with sarcasm. “I presume, however, that you are
+acquainted with the main facts. I succeeded to this estate encumbered
+with a mortgage, created by your grandfather, an extravagant and
+unbusiness-like man. That mortgage I looked to your mother’s fortune to
+pay off, but other calls made this impossible. For instance, the
+sea-wall here had to be built if the Abbey was to be saved, and half a
+mile of sea-walling costs something. Also very extensive repairs to the
+house were necessary, and I was forced to take three farms in hand when
+I retired from the army fifteen years ago. This has involved a net loss
+of about ten thousand pounds, while all the time the interest had to be
+paid and the place kept up in a humble fashion.”
+
+“I thought that my uncle Porson took over the mortgage after my
+mother’s death,” interrupted Morris.
+
+“That is so,” answered his father, wincing a little; “but a creditor
+remains a creditor, even if he happens to be a relative by marriage. I
+have nothing to say against your uncle John, who is an excellent person
+in his way, and well-meaning. Of course, he has been justified,
+perfectly justified, in using his business abilities—or perhaps I
+should say instincts, for they are hereditary—to his own advantage. In
+fact, however, directly or indirectly, he has done well out of this
+property and his connection with our family—exceedingly well, both
+financially and socially. In a time of stress I was forced to sell him
+the two miles of sea-frontage building-land between here and Northwold
+for a mere song. During the last ten years, as you know, he has cut
+this up into over five hundred villa sites, which he has sold upon long
+lease at ground-rents that to-day bring in annually as much as he paid
+for the whole property.”
+
+“Yes, father; but you might have done the same. He advised you to
+before he bought the land.”
+
+“Perhaps I might, but I am not a tradesman; I do not understand these
+affairs. And, Morris, I must remind you that in such matters I have had
+no assistance. I do not blame you any more than I blame myself—it is
+not in your line either—but I repeat that I have had no assistance.”
+
+Morris did not argue the point. “Well, father,” he asked, “what is the
+upshot? Are we ruined?”
+
+“Ruined? That is a large word, and an ugly one. No, we are no more
+ruined than we have been for the last half-dozen years, for, thank
+Heaven, I still have resources and—friends. But, of course, this place
+is in a way expensive, and you yourself would be the last to pretend
+that our burdens have been lessened by—your having abandoned the very
+strange profession which you selected, and devoted yourself to
+researches which, if interesting, must be called abstract——”
+
+“Forgive me, father,” interrupted Morris with a ring of indignation in
+his voice; “but you must remember that I put you to no expense. In
+addition to what I inherited from my mother, which, of course, under
+the circumstances I do not ask for, I have my fellowship, out of which
+I contribute something towards the cost of my living and experiments,
+that, by the way, I keep as low as possible.”
+
+“Of course, of course,” said the Colonel, who did not wish to pursue
+this branch of the subject, but his son went on:
+
+“You know also that it was at your express wish that I came to live
+here at Monksland, as for the purposes of my work it would have suited
+me much better to take rooms in London or some other scientific
+centre.”
+
+“Really, my dear boy, you should control yourself,” broke in his
+father. “That is always the way with recluses; they cannot bear the
+slightest criticism. Of course, as you were going to devote yourself to
+this line of research it was right and proper that we should live
+together. Surely you would not wish at my age that I should be deprived
+of the comfort of the society of an only child, especially now that
+your mother has left us?”
+
+“Certainly not, father,” answered Morris, softening, as was his fashion
+at the thought of his dead mother.
+
+Then came a pause, and he hoped that the conversation was at end; a
+vain hope, as it proved.
+
+“My real object in troubling you, Morris,” continued his father,
+presently, “was very different to the unnecessary discussions into
+which we have drifted.”
+
+His son looked up, but said nothing. Again he knew what was coming, and
+it was worse than anything that had gone before.
+
+“This place seems very solitary with the two of us living in its great
+rooms. I, who am getting an old fellow, and you a student and a
+recluse—no, don’t deny it, for nowadays I can barely persuade you to
+attend even the Bench or a lawn-tennis party. Well, fortunately, we
+have power to add to our numbers; or at least you have. I wish you
+would marry, Morris.”
+
+His son turned sharply, and answered:
+
+“Thank you, father, but I have no fancy that way.”
+
+“Now, there’s Jane Rose, or that handsome Eliza Layard,” went on the
+Colonel, taking no notice. “I have reason to know that you might have
+either of them for the asking, and they are both good women without a
+breath against them, and, what in the state of this property is not
+without importance, very well to do. Jane gets fifty thousand pounds
+down on the day of her marriage, and as much more, together with the
+place, upon old Lady Rose’s death; while Miss Layard—if she is not
+quite to the manner born—has the interest in that great colliery and a
+rather sickly brother. Lastly—and this is strange enough, considering
+how you treat them—they admire you, or at least Eliza does, for she
+told me she thought you the most interesting man she had ever met.”
+
+“Did she indeed!” ejaculated Morris. “Why, I have only spoken three
+times to her during the last year.”
+
+“No doubt, my dear boy, that is why she thinks you interesting. To her
+you are a mine of splendid possibilities. But I understand that you
+don’t like either of them.”
+
+“No, not particularly—especially Eliza Layard, who isn’t a lady, and
+has a vicious temper—nor any young woman whom I have ever met.”
+
+“Do you mean to tell me candidly, Morris, that at your age you detest
+women?”
+
+“I don’t say that; I only say that I never met one to whom I felt much
+attracted, and that I have met a great many by whom I was repelled.”
+
+“Decidedly, Morris, in you the strain of the ancestral fish is too
+predominant. It isn’t natural; it really isn’t. You ought to have been
+born three centuries ago, when the old monks lived here. You would have
+made a first-class abbot, and might have been canonised by now. Am I to
+understand, then, that you absolutely decline to marry?”
+
+“No, father; I don’t want you to understand anything of the sort. If I
+could meet a lady whom I liked, and who wouldn’t expect too much, and
+who was foolish enough to wish to take me, of course I should marry
+her, as you are so bent upon it.”
+
+“Well, Morris, and what sort of a woman would fulfil the conditions, to
+your notion?”
+
+His son looked about him vaguely, as though he expected to find his
+ideal in some nook of the dim garden.
+
+“What sort of a woman? Well, somebody like my cousin Mary, I suppose—an
+easy-going person of that kind, who always looks pleasant and cool.”
+
+Morris did not see him, for he had turned his head away; but at the
+mention of Mary Porson’s name his father started, as though someone had
+pricked him with a pin. But Colonel Monk had not commanded a regiment
+with some success and been a military attache for nothing; having
+filled diplomatic positions, public and private, in his time, he could
+keep his countenance, and play his part when he chose. Indeed, did his
+simpler-minded son but know it, all that evening he had been playing a
+part.
+
+“Oh! that’s your style, is it?” he said. “Well, at your age I should
+have preferred something a little different. But there is no accounting
+for tastes; and after all, Mary is a beautiful woman, and clever in her
+own way. By Jove! there’s one o’clock striking, and I promised old
+Charters that I would always be in bed by half-past eleven. Good night,
+my boy. By the way, you remember that your uncle Porson is coming to
+Seaview to-morrow from London, and that we are engaged to dine with him
+at eight. Fancy a man who could build that pretentious monstrosity and
+call it Seaview! Well, it will condemn him to the seventh generation;
+but in this world one must take people as one finds them, and their
+houses, too. Mind you lock the garden door when you come in. Good
+night.”
+
+“Really,” thought Colonel Monk to himself as he took off his
+dress-shoes and, with military precision, set them side by side beneath
+a chair, “it does seem a little hard on me that I should be responsible
+for a son who is in love with a damned, unworkable electrical machine.
+And with his chances—with his chances! Why he might have been a second
+secretary in the Diplomatic Service by now, or anything else to which
+interest could help him. And there he sits hour after hour gabbling
+down a little trumpet and listening for an answer which never
+comes—hour after hour, and month after month, and year after year. Is
+he a genius, or is he an idiot, or a moral curiosity, or simply
+useless? I’m hanged if I know, but that’s a good idea about Mary;
+though, of course, there are things against it. Curious that I should
+never have considered the matter seriously before—because of the
+cousinship, I suppose. Would she have him? It doesn’t seem likely, but
+you can never know what a woman will or will not do, and as a child she
+was very fond of Morris. At any rate the situation is desperate, and if
+I can, I mean to save the old place, for his sake and our family’s, as
+well as my own.”
+
+He went to the window, and, lifting a corner of the blind, looked out.
+“There he is, still staring at the sea and the sky, and there I daresay
+he will be till dawn. I bet he has forgotten all about Mary now, and is
+thinking of his electrical machine. What a curiosity! Good heavens;
+what a curiosity! Ah, I wonder what they would have made of him in my
+old mess five and thirty years ago?” And quite overcome by this
+reflection, the Colonel shook his grizzled head, put out the candle,
+and retired to rest.
+
+His father was right. The beautiful September dawn was breaking over
+the placid sea before Morris brushed the night dew from his hair and
+cloak, and went in by the abbot’s door.
+
+What was he thinking of all the time? He scarcely knew. One by one,
+like little clouds in the summer sky, fancies arose in his mind to sail
+slowly across its depth and vanish upon an inconclusive and shadowy
+horizon. Of course, he thought about his instruments; these were never
+absent from his heart. His instinct flew back to them as an oasis, as
+an island of rest in the wilderness of his father’s thorny and
+depressing conversation. The instruments were disappointing, it is
+true, at present; but, at any rate, they did not dwell gloomily upon
+impending ruin or suggest that it was his duty to get married. They
+remained silent, distressingly silent indeed.
+
+Well, as the question of marriage had been started, he might as well
+face it out; that is, argue it in his mind, reduce it to its
+principles, follow it to its issues in a reasonable and scientific
+manner. What were the facts? His family, which, by tradition, was
+reported to be Danish in its origin, had owned this property for
+several hundred years, though how they came to own it remained a matter
+of dispute. Some said the Abbey and its lands were granted to a man of
+the name of Monk by Henry VIII., of course for a consideration. Others
+held, and evidence existed in favour of this view, that on the
+dissolution of the monastery the abbot of the day, a shrewd man of easy
+principles, managed to possess himself of the Chapter House and further
+extensive hereditaments, of course with the connivance of the
+Commissioners, and, providing himself with a wife, to exchange a
+spiritual for a temporal dignity. At least this remained certain, that
+from the time of Elizabeth onwards Morris’s forefathers had been
+settled in the old Abbey house at Monksland; that the first of them
+about whom they really knew anything was named Monk, and that Monk was
+still the family name.
+
+Now they were all dead and gone, and their history, which was
+undistinguished, does not matter. To come to the present day. His
+father succeeded to a diminished and encumbered estate; indeed, had it
+not been for the fortune of his mother, a Miss Porson and one of a
+middle class and business, but rather wealthy family, the property must
+have been sold years before. That fortune, however, had long ago been
+absorbed—or so he gathered—for his father, a brilliant and fashionable
+army officer, was not the man to stint himself or to nurse a crippled
+property. Indeed, it was wonderful to Morris how, without any
+particular change in their style of living, which, if unpretentious,
+was not cheap, in these bad times they had managed to keep afloat at
+all.
+
+Unworldly as Morris might be, he could easily guess why his father
+wished that he should marry, and marry well. It was that he might
+bolster up the fortunes of a shattered family. Also—and this touched
+him, this commanded his sympathy—he was the last of his race. If he
+died without issue the ancient name of Monk became extinct, a
+consummation from which his father shrank with something like horror.
+
+The Colonel was a selfish man—Morris could not conceal it, even from
+himself—one who had always thought of his own comfort and convenience
+first. Yet, either from idleness or pride, to advance these he had
+never stooped to scheme. Where the welfare of his family was concerned,
+however, as his son knew, he was a schemer. That desire was the one
+real and substantial thing in a somewhat superficial, egotistic, and
+finessing character.
+
+Morris saw it all as he leaned there upon the railing, staring at the
+mist-draped sea, more clearly, indeed, than he had ever seen it before.
+He understood, moreover, what an unsatisfactory son he must be to a man
+like his father—if it had tried, Providence could hardly have furnished
+him with offspring more unsuitable. The Colonel had wished him to enter
+the Diplomatic Service, or the Army, or at least to get himself called
+to the Bar; but although a really brilliant University career and his
+family influence would have given him advantages in any of these
+professions, he had declined them all. So, following his natural bent,
+he became an electrician, and now, abandoning the practical side of
+that modest calling, he was an experimental physicist, full of deep but
+unremunerative lore, and—an unsuccessful inventor. Certainly he owed
+something to his family, and if his father wished that he should marry,
+well, marry he must, as a matter of duty, if for no other reason. After
+all, the thing was not pressing; for it it came to the point, what
+woman was likely to accept him? All he had done to-night was to settle
+the general principles in his own mind. When it became necessary—if
+ever—he could deal with the details.
+
+And yet this sort of marriage which was proposed to him, was it not an
+unholy business? He cared little for women, having no weakness that
+way, probably because the energy which other young men gave to the
+pursuit of them was in his case absorbed by intense and
+brain-exhausting study. Therefore he was not a man who if left to
+himself, would marry, as so many do, merely in order to be married;
+indeed, the idea to him was almost repulsive. Had he been a
+woman-hater, he might have accepted it more easily, for then to him one
+would have been as the other. But the trouble was that he knew and felt
+that a time might come when in his eyes one woman would be different
+from all others, a being who spoke not to his physical nature only, if
+at all, but to the core within him. And if that happened, what then?
+
+Look, the sun was rising. On the eastern sky of a sudden two golden
+doors had opened in the canopy of night, and in and out of them seemed
+to pass glittering, swift-winged things, as souls might tread the Gate
+of Heaven. Look, too, at the little clouds that in an unending stream
+floated out of the gloom—travellers pressed onwards by a breath of
+destiny. They were leaden-hued, all of them, black, indeed, at times,
+until they caught the radiance, and for a while became like the pennons
+of an angel’s wings. Then one by one the glory overtook and embraced
+them, and they melted into it to be seen no more.
+
+What did the sight suggest to him? That it was worth while, perhaps, to
+be a mere drift of cloud, storm-driven and rain-laden in the bitter
+Night of Life, if the Morning of Deliverance brought such
+transformation on its wings. That beyond some such gates as these,
+gates that at times, greatly daring, he longed to tread, lay the answer
+to many a mystery. Amongst other things, perhaps, there he would learn
+the meaning of true marriage, and why it is denied to most dwellers of
+the earth. Without a union of the spirit was there indeed any marriage
+as it should be understood? And who in this world could hope to find
+his fellow spirit?
+
+See, the sun had risen, the golden gates were shut. He had been
+dreaming, and was chilled to the bone. Wretchedness, mental and bodily,
+took hold of him. Well, often enough such is the fate of those who
+dream; those who turn from their needful, daily tasks to shape an angel
+out of this world’s clay, trusting to some unknown god to give it life
+and spirit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+“POOR PORSON”
+
+
+Upon the morning following his conversation with Morris, Colonel Monk
+spent two hours or more in the library. Painfully did he wrestle there
+with balance-sheets, adding up bank books; also other financial
+documents.
+
+“Phew!” he said, when at length the job was done. “It is worse than I
+thought, a good deal worse. My credit must be excellent, or somebody
+would have been down upon us before now. Well, I must talk things over
+with Porson. He understands figures, and so he ought, considering that
+he kept the books in his grandfather’s shop.”
+
+Then the Colonel went to lunch less downcast than might have been
+expected, since he anticipated a not unamusing half-hour with his son.
+As he knew well, Morris detested business matters and money
+calculations. Still, reflected his parent, it was only right that he
+should take his share of the family responsibilities—a fact which he
+fully intended to explain to him.
+
+But “in vain is the net spread,” etc. As Morris passed the door of the
+library on his way to the old chapel of the Abbey, which now served him
+as a laboratory, he had seen his father bending over the desk and
+guessed his occupation. Knowing, therefore, what he must expect at
+lunch, Morris determined to dispense with that meal, and went out, much
+to the Colonel’s disappointment and indignation. “I hate,” he explained
+to his brother-in-law Porson afterwards, “yes, I hate a fellow who
+won’t face disagreeables and shirks his responsibilities.”
+
+Between Monksland and the town of Northwold lay some four miles of
+cliff, most of which had been portioned off in building lots, for
+Northwold was what is called a “rising watering-place.” About half-way
+between the Abbey and this town stood Mr. Porson’s mansion. In fact, it
+was nothing but a dwelling like those about it, presenting the familiar
+seaside gabled roofs of red tiles, and stucco walls decorated with sham
+woodwork, with the difference that the house was exceedingly well built
+and about four times as large as the average villa.
+
+“Great heavens! what a place!” said the Colonel to himself as he halted
+at the private gateway which opened on to the cliff and surveyed it
+affronting sea and sky in all its naked horror. “Show me the house and
+I will show you the man,” he went on to himself; “but, after all, one
+mustn’t judge him too hardly. Poor Porson, he did not arrange his own
+up-bringing or his ancestors. Hello! there he is.
+
+“John, John, John!” he shouted at a stout little person clad in a black
+alpaca coat, a straw hat, and a pair of spectacles, who was engaged in
+sad contemplation of a bed of dying evergreens.
+
+At the sound of that well-known voice the little man jumped as though
+he had trodden on a pin, and turned round slowly, muttering to himself,
+
+“Gracious! It’s him!” an ungrammatical sentence which indicated
+sufficiently how wide a niche in the temple of his mind was filled with
+the image of his brother-in-law, Colonel Monk.
+
+John Porson was a man of about six or eight and fifty, round-faced,
+bald, with large blue eyes not unlike those of a china doll, and
+clean-shaven except for a pair of sandy-coloured mutton-chop whiskers.
+In expression he was gentle, even timid, and in figure short and stout.
+At this very moment behind a hundred counters stand a hundred replicas
+of that good-hearted man and worthy citizen, John Porson. Can he be
+described better or more briefly?
+
+“How are you, Colonel?” he said, hurrying forward. He had never yet
+dared to call his brother-in-law “Monk,” and much less by his Christian
+name, so he compromised on “Colonel.”
+
+“Pretty well, thank you, considering my years and botherations. And how
+are you, John?”
+
+“Not very grand, not very grand,” said the little man; “my heart has
+been troubling me, and it was so dreadfully hot in London.”
+
+“Then why didn’t you come away?”
+
+“Really I don’t know. I understood that it had something to do with a
+party, but I think the fact is that Mary was too lazy to look after the
+servants while they packed up.”
+
+“Perhaps she had some attraction there,” suggested the Colonel, with an
+anxiety which might have been obvious to a more skilled observer.
+
+“Attraction! What do you mean?” asked Porson.
+
+“Mean, you old goose? Why, what should I mean? A young man, of course.”
+
+“Oh! I see. No, I am sure it was nothing of that sort. Mary won’t be
+bothered with young men. She is too lazy; she just looks over their
+heads till they get tired and go away. I am sure it was the packing,
+or, perhaps, the party. But what are you staring at, Colonel? Is there
+anything wrong?”
+
+“No, no; only that wonderful window of yours—the one filled with
+bottle-glass—which always reminds me of a bull’s-eye lantern standing
+on a preserved-beef tin, or the top of a toy lighthouse.”
+
+Porson peered at the offending window through his spectacles.
+
+“Certainly, now you mention it, it does look a little odd from here,”
+he said; “naked, rather. You said so before, you remember, and I told
+them to plant the shrubs; but while I was away they let every one of
+the poor things die. I will ask my architect, Jenkins, if he can’t do
+anything; it might be pulled down, perhaps.”
+
+“Better leave it alone,” said the Colonel, with a sniff. “If I know
+anything of Jenkins he’d only put up something worse. I tell you, John,
+that where bricks and mortar are concerned that man’s a moral monster.”
+
+“I know you don’t like his style,” murmured Porson; “but won’t you come
+in, it is so hot out here in the sun?”
+
+“Thank you, yes, but let us go to that place you call your den, not to
+the drawing-room. If you can spare it, I want half-an-hour with you.
+That’s why I came over in the afternoon, before dinner.”
+
+“Certainly, certainly,” murmured Porson again, as he led the way to the
+“den,” but to himself he added: “It’s those mortgages, I’ll bet. Oh
+dear! oh dear! when shall I see the last of them?”
+
+Presently they were established in the den, the Colonel very cool and
+comfortable in Mr. Porson’s armchair, and Porson himself perched upon
+the edge of a new-looking leather sofa in an attitude of pained
+expectancy.
+
+“Now I am at your service, Colonel,” he said.
+
+“Oh! yes; well, it is just this. I want you, if you will, to look
+through these figures for me,” and he produced and handed to him a
+portentous document headed “List of Obligations.”
+
+Mr. Porson glanced at it, and instantly his round, simple face became
+clever and alert. Here he was on his own ground. In five minutes he had
+mastered the thing.
+
+“Yes,” he said, in a quick voice, “this is quite clear, but there is
+some mistake in the addition making a difference of £87 3_s_. 10_d_. in
+your favour. Well, where is the schedule of assets?”
+
+“The schedule of assets, my dear John? I wish I knew. I have my
+pension, and there are the Abbey and estates, which, as things are,
+seem to be mortgaged to their full value. That’s about all, I think.
+Unless—unless”—and he laughed, “we throw in Morris’s patent electrical
+machine, which won’t work.”
+
+“It ought to be reckoned, perhaps,” replied Mr. Porson gravely; adding
+in a kind of burst, with an air of complete conviction: “I believe in
+Morris’s machine, or, at least, I believe in Morris. He has the makings
+of a great man—no, of a great inventor about him.”
+
+“Do you really?” replied the Colonel, much interested. “That is
+curious—and encouraging; for, my dear John, where business matters are
+concerned, I trust your judgment.”
+
+“But I doubt whether he will make any money out of it,” went on Porson.
+“One day the world will benefit; probably he will not benefit.”
+
+The Colonel’s interest faded. “Possibly, John; but, if so, perhaps for
+present purposes we may leave this mysterious discovery out of the
+question.”
+
+“I think so, I think so; but what is the point?”
+
+“The point is that I seem to be about at the end of my tether,
+although, as yet, I am glad to say, nobody has actually pressed me, and
+I have come to you, as a friend and a relative, for advice. What is to
+be done? I have sold you all the valuable land, and I am glad to think
+that you have made a very good thing of it. Some years ago, also, you
+took over the two heaviest mortgages on the Abbey estate, and I am
+sorry to say that the interest is considerably in arrear. There remain
+the floating debts and other charges, amounting in all to about £7,000,
+which I have no means of meeting, and meanwhile, of course, the place
+must be kept up. Under these circumstances, John, I ask you as a
+business man, what is to be done?”
+
+“And, as a business man, I say I’m hanged if I know,” said Porson, with
+unwonted energy. “All debts, no assets—the position is impossible.
+Unless, indeed, something happens.”
+
+“Quite so. That’s it. My only comfort is—that something might happen,”
+and he paused.
+
+Porson fidgeted about on the edge of the leather sofa and turned red.
+In his heart he was wondering whether he dared offer to pay off the
+debts. This he was quite able to do; more, he was willing to do, since
+to him, good simple man, the welfare of the ancient house of Monk, of
+which his only sister had married the head, was a far more important
+thing than parting with a certain number of thousands of pounds. For
+birth and station, in his plebeian humility, John Porson had a
+reverence which was almost superstitious. Moreover, he had loved his
+dead sister dearly, and, in his way, he loved her son also. Also he
+revered his brother-in-law, the polished and splendid-looking Colonel,
+although it was true that sometimes he writhed beneath his military and
+aristocratic heel. Particularly, indeed, did he resent, in his secret
+heart, those continual sarcasms about his taste in architecture.
+
+Now, although the monetary transactions between them had been many, as
+luck would have it—entirely without his own design—they chanced in the
+main to have turned to his, Porson’s, advantage. Thus, owing chiefly to
+his intelligent development of its possibilities, the land which he
+bought from the Monk estate had increased enormously in value; so much
+so, indeed, that, even if he lost all the other sums advanced upon
+mortgage, he would still be considerably to the good. Therefore, as it
+happened, the Colonel was really under no obligations to him. In these
+circumstances, Mr. Porson did not quite know how a cold-blooded offer
+of an advance of cash without security—in practice a gift—would be
+received.
+
+“Have you anything definite in your mind?” he hesitated, timidly.
+
+The Colonel reflected. On his part he was wondering how Porson would
+receive the suggestion of a substantial loan. It seemed too much to
+risk. He was proud, and did not like to lay himself open to the
+possibility of rebuff.
+
+“I think not, John. Unless Morris should chance to make a good
+marriage, which is unlikely, for, as you know, he is an odd fish, I can
+see nothing before us except ruin. Indeed, at my age, it does not
+greatly matter, but it seems a pity that the old house should come to
+an end in such a melancholy and discreditable fashion.”
+
+“A pity! It is more than a pity,” jerked out Porson, with a sudden
+wriggle which caused him to rock up and down upon the stiff springs of
+the new sofa.
+
+As he spoke there came a knock at the door, and from the further side
+of it a slow, rich voice was heard, saying: “May I come in?”
+
+“That’s Mary,” said Mr. Porson. “Yes, come in, dear; it’s only your
+uncle.”
+
+The door opened, Mary came in, and, in some curious quiet way, at once
+her personality seemed to take possession of and dominate that shaded
+room. To begin with, her stature gave an idea of dominion, for, without
+being at all coarse, she was tall and full in frame. The face also was
+somewhat massive, with a rounded chin and large, blue eyes that had a
+trick of looking half asleep, and above a low, broad forehead grew her
+waving, golden hair, parted simply in the middle after the old Greek
+fashion. She wore a white dress, with a silver girdle that set off the
+beautiful outlines of her figure to great advantage, and with her a
+perfume seemed to pass, perhaps from the roses on her bosom.
+
+“A beautiful woman,” thought the Colonel to himself, as she came in,
+and he was no mean or inexperienced judge. “A beautiful woman, but a
+regular lotus-eater.”
+
+“How do you do, Uncle Richard?” said Mary, pausing about six feet away
+and holding out her hand. “I heard you scolding my poor dad about his
+bow-window. In fact, you woke me up; and, do you know, you used exactly
+the same words as you did at your visit after we came down from London
+last year.”
+
+“Bless me, my dear,” said the Colonel, struggling to his feet, and
+kissing his niece upon the forehead, “what a memory you have got! It
+will get you into trouble some day.”
+
+“I daresay—me, or somebody else. But history repeated itself, uncle,
+that is all. The same sleepy Me in a lounge-chair, the same hot day,
+the same blue-bottle, and the same You scolding the same Daddy about
+the same window. Though what on earth dad’s window can matter to anyone
+except himself, I can’t understand.”
+
+“I daresay not, my dear; I daresay not. We can none of us know
+everything—not even latter day young ladies—but I suggest that a few
+hours with Fergussen’s ‘Handbook of Architecture’ might enlighten you
+on the point.”
+
+Mary reflected, but the only repartee that she could conjure at the
+moment was something about ancient lights which did not seem
+appropriate. Therefore, as she thought that she had done enough for
+honour, and to remind her awe-inspiring relative that he could not
+suppress her, suddenly she changed the subject.
+
+“You are looking very well, uncle,” she said, surveying him calmly;
+“and younger than you did last year. How is my cousin Morris? Will the
+aerophone talk yet?”
+
+“Be careful,” said the Colonel, gallantly. “If even my grey hairs can
+provoke a compliment, what homage is sufficient for a Sleeping Beauty?
+As for Morris, he is, I believe, much as usual; at least he stood this
+morning till daybreak staring at the sea. I understand, however—if he
+doesn’t forget to come—that you are to have the pleasure of seeing him
+this evening, when you will be able to judge for yourself.”
+
+“Now, don’t be sarcastic about Morris, uncle; I’d rather you went on
+abusing dad’s window.”
+
+“Certainly not, my dear, if it displeases you. But may I ask why he is
+to be considered sacred?”
+
+“Why?” she answered, and a genuine note crept into her bantering voice.
+“Because he is one of the few men worth anything whom I ever chanced to
+meet—except dad there and——”
+
+“Spare me,” cut in the Colonel, with admirable skill, for well he knew
+that his name was not upon the lady’s lips. “But would it be
+impertinent to inquire what it is that constitutes Morris’s preeminent
+excellence in your eyes?”
+
+“Of course not; only it is three things, not one. First, he works
+harder than any man I know, and I think men who work adorable, because
+I am so lazy myself. Secondly, he thinks a great deal, and very few
+people do that to any purpose. Thirdly, I never feel inclined to go to
+sleep when he takes me in to dinner. Oh! you may laugh if you like, but
+ask dad what happened to me last month with that wretched old member of
+the Government, and before the sweets, too!”
+
+“Please, please,” put in Mr. Porson, turning pink under pressure of
+some painful recollection. “If you have finished sparring with your
+uncle, isn’t there any tea, Mary?”
+
+“I believe so,” she said, relapsing into a state of bland indifference.
+“I’ll go and see. If I don’t come back, you’ll know it is there,” and
+Mary passed through the door with that indolent, graceful walk which no
+one could mistake who once had seen her.
+
+Both her father and her uncle looked after her with admiration. Mr.
+Porson admired her because the man or woman who dared to meet that
+domestic tyrant his brother-in-law in single combat, and could issue
+unconquered from the doubtful fray, was indeed worthy to be honoured.
+Colonel Monk for his part hastened to do homage to a very pretty and
+charming young lady, one, moreover, who was not in the least afraid of
+him.
+
+Mary had gone, and the air from the offending window, which was so
+constructed as to let in a maximum of draught, banged the door behind
+her. The two men looked at each other. A thought was in the mind of
+each; but the Colonel, trained by long experience, and wise in his
+generation, waited for Mr. Porson to speak. Many and many a time in the
+after days did he find reason to congratulate himself upon this superb
+reticence—for there are occasions when discretion can amount almost to
+the height of genius. Under their relative circumstances, if it had
+been he who first suggested this alliance, he and his family must have
+remained at the gravest disadvantage, and as for stipulations, well, he
+could have made none. But as it chanced it was from poor Porson’s lips
+that the suggestion came.
+
+Mr. Porson cleared his throat—once, twice, thrice. At the third rasp,
+the Colonel became very attentive. He remembered that his
+brother-in-law had done exactly the same thing at the very apex of a
+long-departed crisis; indeed, just before he offered spontaneously to
+take over the mortgages on the Abbey estate.
+
+“You were talking, Colonel,” he began, “when Mary came in,” and he
+paused.
+
+“I daresay,” replied the Colonel indifferently, fixing a contemptuous
+glance upon some stone mullions of atrocious design.
+
+“About Morris marrying?”
+
+“Oh, yes, so I was! Well?”
+
+“Well—she seems to like him. I know she does indeed. She never talks of
+any other young man.”
+
+“She? Who?”
+
+“My daughter, Mary; and—so—why shouldn’t they—you know?”
+
+“Really, John, I must ask you to be a little more explicit. It’s no
+good your addressing me in your business ciphers.”
+
+“Well—I mean—why shouldn’t he marry her? Morris marry Mary? Is that
+plain enough?” he asked in desperation.
+
+For a moment a mist gathered before the Colonel’s eyes. Here was
+salvation indeed, if only it could be brought about. Oh! if only it
+could be brought about.
+
+But the dark eyes never changed, nor did a muscle move upon that pale,
+commanding countenance.
+
+“Morris marry Mary,” he repeated, dwelling on the alliterative words as
+though to convince himself that he had heard them aright. “That is a
+very strange proposition, my dear John, and sudden, too. Why, they are
+first cousins, and for that reason, I suppose, the thing never occurred
+to me—till last night,” he added to himself.
+
+“Yes, I know, Colonel; but I am not certain that this first cousin
+business isn’t a bit exaggerated. The returns of the asylums seem to
+show it, and I know my doctor, Sir Henry Andrews, says it’s nonsense.
+You’ll admit that he is an authority. Also, it happened in my own
+family, my father and mother were cousins, and we are none the worse.”
+
+On another occasion the Colonel might have been inclined to comment on
+this statement—of course, most politely. Now, however, he let it pass.
+
+“Well, John,” he said, “putting aside the cousinship, let me hear what
+your idea is of the advantages of such a union, should the parties
+concerned change to consider it suitable.”
+
+“Quite so, quite so, that’s business,” said Mr. Porson, brightening up
+at once. “From my point of view, these would be the advantages. As you
+know, Colonel, so far as I am concerned my origin, for the time I have
+been able to trace it—that’s four generations from old John Porson, the
+Quaker sugar merchant, who came from nobody knows where—although
+honest, is humble, and until my father’s day all in the line of retail
+trade. But then my dear wife came in. She was a governess when I
+married her, as you may have heard, and of a very good Scotch family,
+one of the Camerons, so Mary isn’t all of our cut—any more,” he added
+with a smile, “than Morris is all of yours. Still for her to marry a
+Monk would be a lift up—a considerable lift up, and looked at from a
+business point of view, worth a deal of money.
+
+“Also, I like my nephew Morris, and I am sure that Mary likes him, and
+I’d wish the two of them to inherit what I have got. They wouldn’t have
+very long to wait for it, Colonel, for those doctors may say what they
+will, but I tell you,” he added, pathetically, tapping himself over the
+heart—“though you don’t mention it to Mary—I know better. Oh! yes, I
+know better. That’s about all, except, of course, that I should wish to
+see her settled before I’m gone. A man dies happier, you understand, if
+he is certain whom his only child is going to marry; for when he is
+dead I suppose that he will know nothing of what happens to her. Or,
+perhaps,” he added, as though by an afterthought, “he may know too
+much, and not be able to help; which would be painful, very painful.”
+
+“Don’t get into those speculations, John,” said the Colonel, waving his
+hand. “They are unpleasant, and lead nowhere—sufficient to the day is
+the evil thereof.”
+
+“Quite so, quite so. Life is a queer game of blind-man’s buff, isn’t
+it; played in a mist on a mountain top, and the players keep dropping
+over the precipices. But nobody heeds, because there are always plenty
+more, and the game goes on forever. Well, that’s my side of the case.
+Do you wish me to put yours?”
+
+“I should like to hear your view of it.”
+
+“Very good, it is this. Here’s a nice girl, no one can deny that, and a
+nice man, although he’s odd—you will admit as much. He’s got name, and
+he will have fame, or I am much mistaken. But, as it chances, through
+no fault of his, he wants money, or will want it, for without money the
+old place can’t go on, and without a wife the old race can’t go on.
+Now, Mary will have lots of money, for, to tell the truth, it keeps
+piling up until I am sick of it. I’ve been lucky in that way, Colonel,
+because I don’t care much about it, I suppose. I don’t think that I
+ever yet made a really bad investment. Just look. Two years ago, to
+oblige an old friend who was in the shop with me when I was young, I
+put £5,000 into an Australian mine, never thinking to see it again.
+Yesterday I sold that stock for £50,000.”
+
+“Fifty thousand pounds!” ejaculated the Colonel, astonished into
+admiration.
+
+“Yes, or to be accurate, £49,375, 3_s_., 10_d_., and—that’s where the
+jar comes in—I don’t care. I never thought of it again since I got the
+broker’s note till this minute. I have been thinking all day about my
+heart, which is uneasy, and about what will happen to Mary when I am
+gone. What’s the good of this dirty money to a dying man? I’d give it
+all to have my wife and the boy I lost back for a year or two; yes, I
+would go into a shop again and sell sugar like my grandfather, and live
+on the profits from the till and the counter. There’s Mary calling. We
+must tell a fib, we must say that we thought she was to come to fetch
+us; don’t you forget. Well, there it is, perhaps you’ll think it over
+at your leisure.”
+
+“Yes, John,” replied the Colonel, solemnly; “certainly I will think it
+over. Of course, there are pros and cons, but, on the whole, speaking
+offhand, I don’t see why the young people should not make a match. Also
+you have always been a good relative, and, what is better, a good
+friend to me, so, of course, if possible I should like to fall in with
+your wishes.”
+
+Mr. Porson, who was advancing towards the door, wheeled round quickly.
+
+“Thank you, Colonel,” he said, “I appreciate your sentiments; but don’t
+you make any mistake. It isn’t my wishes that have to be fallen in
+with—or your wishes. It’s the wishes of your son, Morris, and my
+daughter, Mary. If they are agreeable I’d like it well; if not, all the
+money in the world, nor all the families in the world, wouldn’t make me
+have anything to do with the job, or you either. Whatever our failings,
+we are honest men—both of us, who would not sell our flesh and blood
+for such trash as that.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+MARY PREACHES AND THE COLONEL PREVAILS
+
+
+A fortnight had gone by, and during this time Morris was a frequent
+visitor at Seaview. Also his Cousin Mary had come over twice or thrice
+to lunch, with her father or without him. Once, indeed, she had stopped
+all the afternoon, spending most of it in the workshop with Morris.
+This workshop, it may be remembered, was the old chapel of the Abbey, a
+very beautiful and still perfect building, finished in early Tudor
+times, in which, by good fortune, the rich stained glass of the east
+window still remained. It made a noble and spacious laboratory, with
+its wide nave and lovely roof of chestnut wood, whereof the corbels
+were seraphs, white-robed and golden-winged.
+
+“Are you not afraid to desecrate such a place with your horrid vices—I
+mean the iron things—and furnace and litter?” asked Mary. She had sunk
+down upon an anvil, on which lay a newspaper, the first seat that she
+could find, and thence surveyed the strange, incongruous scene.
+
+“Well, if you ask, I don’t like it,” answered Morris. “But there is no
+other place that I can have, for my father is afraid of the forge in
+the house, and I can’t afford to build a workshop outside.”
+
+“It ought to be restored,” said Mary, “with a beautiful organ in a
+carved case and a lovely alabaster altar and one of those perpetual
+lamps of silver—the French call them ‘veilleuses’, don’t they?—and the
+Stations of the Cross in carved oak, and all the rest of it.”
+
+Mary, it may be explained, had a tendency to admire the outward
+adornments of ritualism if not its doctrines.
+
+“Quite so,” answered Morris, smiling. “When I have from five to seven
+thousand to spare I will set about the job, and hire a high-church
+chaplain with a fine voice to come and say Mass for your benefit. By
+the way, would you like a confessional also? You omitted it from the
+list.”
+
+“I think not. Besides, what on earth should I confess, except being
+always late for prayers through oversleeping myself in the morning, and
+general uselessness?”
+
+“Oh, I daresay you might find something if you tried,” suggested
+Morris.
+
+“Speak for yourself, please, Morris. To begin with your own account,
+there is the crime of sacrilege in using a chapel as a workshop. Look,
+those are all tombstones of abbots and other holy people, and under
+each tombstone one of them is asleep. Yet there you are, using strong
+language and whistling and making a horrible noise with hammers just
+above their heads. I wonder they don’t haunt you; I would if I were
+they.”
+
+“Perhaps they do,” said Morris, “only I don’t see them.”
+
+“Then they can’t be there.”
+
+“Why not? Because things are invisible and intangible it does not
+follow that they don’t exist, as I ought to know as much as anyone.”
+
+“Of course; but I am sure that if there were anything of that sort
+about you would soon be in touch with it. With me it is different; I
+could sleep sweetly with ghosts sitting on my bed in rows.”
+
+“Why do you say that—about me, I mean?” asked Morris, in a more earnest
+voice.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know. Go and look at your own eyes in the glass—but I
+daresay you do often enough. Look here, Morris, you think me very
+silly—almost foolish—don’t you?”
+
+“I never thought anything of the sort. As a matter of fact, if you want
+to know, I think you a young woman rather more idle than most, and with
+a perfect passion for burying your talent in very white napkins.”
+
+“Well, it all comes to the same thing, for there isn’t much difference
+between fool-born and fool-manufactured. Sometimes I wake up, however,
+and have moments of wisdom—as when I made you hear that thing, you
+know, thereby proving that it is all right, only useless—haven’t I?”
+
+“I daresay; but come to the point.”
+
+“Don’t be in a hurry. It is rather hard to express myself. What I mean
+is that you had better give up staring.”
+
+“Staring? I never stared at you or anyone else, in my life!”
+
+“Stupid Morris! By staring I mean star-gazing, and by star-gazing I
+mean trying to get away from the earth—in your mind, you know.”
+
+Morris ran his fingers through his untidy hair and opened his lips to
+answer.
+
+“Don’t contradict me,” she interrupted in a full steady voice. “That’s
+what you are thinking of half the day, and dreaming about all the
+night.”
+
+“What’s that?” he ejaculated.
+
+“I don’t know,” she answered, with a sudden access of indifference. “Do
+you know yourself?”
+
+“I am waiting for instruction,” said Morris, sarcastically.
+
+“All right, then, I’ll try. I mean that you are not satisfied with this
+world and those of us who live here. You keep trying to fashion
+another—oh! yes, you have been at it from a boy, you see I have got a
+good memory, I remember all your ‘vision stories’—and then you try to
+imagine its inhabitants.”
+
+“Well,” said Morris, with the sullen air of a convicted criminal,
+“without admitting one word of this nonsense, what if I do?”
+
+“Only that you had better look out that you don’t _find_ whatever it is
+you seek. It’s a horrible mistake to be so spiritual, at least in that
+kind of way. You should eat and drink, and sleep ten hours as I do, and
+not go craving for vision till you can see, and praying for power until
+you can create.”
+
+“See! Create! Who? What?”
+
+“The inhabitant, or inhabitants. Just think, you may have been building
+her up all this time, imagination by imagination, and thought by
+thought. Then her day might come, and all that you have put out
+piecemeal will return at once. Yes, she may appear, and take you, and
+possess you, and lead you——”
+
+“She? Why she? and where?”
+
+“To the devil, I imagine,” answered Mary composedly, “and as you are a
+man one can guess the guide’s sex. It’s getting dark, let us go out.
+This is such a creepy place in the dark that it actually makes me
+understand what people mean by nerves. And, Morris, of course you
+understand that I have only been talking rubbish. I always liked
+inventing fairy tales; you taught me; only this one is too grown
+up—disagreeable. What I really mean is that I do think it might be a
+good thing if you wouldn’t live quite so much alone, and would go out a
+bit more. You are getting quite an odd look on your face; you are
+indeed, not like other men at all. I believe that it comes from your
+worrying about this wretched invention until you are half crazy over
+the thing. Any change there?”
+
+He shook his head. “No, I can’t find the right alloy—not one that can
+be relied upon. I begin to doubt whether it exists.”
+
+“Why don’t you give it up—for a while at any rate?”
+
+“I have. I made a novel kind of electrical hand-saw this spring, and
+sold the patent for £100 and a royalty. There’s commercial success for
+you, and now I am at work on a new lamp of which I have the idea.”
+
+“I am uncommonly glad to hear it,” said Mary with energy. “And, I say,
+Morris, you are not offended at my silly parables, are you? You know
+what I mean.”
+
+“Not a bit. I think it is very kind of you to worry your head about an
+impossible fellow like me. And look here, Mary, I have done some
+dreaming in my time, it is true, for so far the world has been a place
+of tribulation to me, and it is sick hearts that dream. But I mean to
+give it up, for I know as well as you do that there is only one end to
+all these systems of mysticism.” Mary looked up.
+
+“I mean,” he went on, correcting himself, “to the mad attempt unduly
+and prematurely to cultivate our spiritual natures that we may live to
+and for them, and not to and for our natural bodies.”
+
+“Exactly my argument, put into long words,” said Mary. “There will be
+plenty of time for that when we get down among those old gentlemen
+yonder—a year or two hence, you know. Meanwhile, let us take the world
+as we find it. It isn’t a bad place, after all, at times, and there are
+several things worth doing for those who are not too lazy.
+
+“Good-bye, I must be off; my bicycle is there against the railings. Oh,
+how I hate that machine! Now, listen, Morris; do you want to do
+something really useful, and earn the blessings of an affectionate
+relative? Then invent a really reliable electrical bike, that would
+look nice and do all the work, so that I could sit on it comfortably
+and get to a place without my legs aching as though I had broken them,
+and a red face, and no breath left in my body.”
+
+“I will think about it,” he said; “indeed, I have thought of it already
+but the accumulators are the trouble.”
+
+“Then go on thinking, there’s an angel; think hard and continually
+until you evolve that blessed instrument of progression. I say, I
+haven’t a lamp.”
+
+“I’ll lend you mine,” suggested Morris.
+
+“No; other people’s lamps always go out with me, and so do my own, for
+that matter. I’ll risk it; I know the policeman, and if we meet I will
+argue with him. Good-bye; don’t forget we are coming to dinner
+to-morrow night. It’s a party, isn’t it?”
+
+“I believe so.”
+
+“What a bore, I must unpack my London dresses. Well, good-bye again.”
+
+“Good-bye, dear,” answered Morris, and she was gone.
+
+“‘Dear,’” thought Mary to herself; “he hasn’t called me that since I
+was sixteen. I wonder why he does it now? Because I have been scolding
+him, I suppose; that generally makes men affectionate.”
+
+For a while she glided forward through the grey twilight, and then
+began to think again, muttering to herself:
+
+“You idiot, Mary, why should you be pleased because he called you
+‘dear’? He doesn’t really care two-pence about you; his blood goes no
+quicker when you pass by and no slower when you stay away. Why do you
+bother about him? and what made you talk all that stuff this afternoon?
+Because you think he is in a queer way, and that if he goes on giving
+himself up to his fancies he will become mad—yes, mad—because—Oh!
+what’s the use of making excuses—because you are fond of him, and
+always have been fond of him from a child, and can’t help it. What a
+fate! To be fond of a man who hasn’t the heart to care for you or for
+any other woman. Perhaps, however, that’s only because he hasn’t found
+the right one, as he might do at any time, and then——”
+
+“Where are you going to, and where’s your light?” shouted a hoarse
+voice from the pathway on which she was unlawfully riding.
+
+“My good man, I wish I knew,” answered Mary, blandly.
+
+Morris, for whom the day never seemed long enough, was a person who
+breakfasted punctually at half-past eight, whereas Colonel Monk, to
+whom—at any rate at Monksland—the day was often too long, generally
+breakfasted at ten. To his astonishment, however, on entering the
+dining-room upon the morrow of his interview in the workshop with Mary,
+he found his father seated at the head of the table.
+
+“This means a ‘few words’ with me about something disagreeable,”
+thought Morris to himself as he dabbed viciously at an evasive sausage.
+He was not fond of these domestic conversations. Nor was he in the
+least reassured by his father’s airy and informed comments upon the
+contents of the “Globe,” which always arrived by post, and the marvel
+of its daily “turnover” article, whereof the perpetual variety
+throughout the decades constituted, the Colonel was wont to say, the
+eighth wonder of the world. Instinct, instructed by experience, assured
+him that these were but the first moves in the game.
+
+Towards the end of the meal he attempted retreat, pretending that he
+wanted to fetch something, but the Colonel, who was watching him over
+the top of the pink page of the “Globe,” intervened promptly.
+
+“If you have a few minutes to spare, my dear boy, I should like to have
+a chat with you,” he said.
+
+“Certainly, father,” answered the dutiful Morris; “I am at your
+service.”
+
+“Very good; then I will light my cigar, and we might take a stroll on
+the beach, that is, after I have seen the cook about the dinner
+to-night. Perhaps I shall find you presently by the steps.”
+
+“I will wait for you there,” answered Morris. And wait he did, for a
+considerable while, for the interview with the cook proved lengthy.
+Moreover, the Colonel was not a punctual person, or one who set an
+undue value upon his own or other people’s time. At length, just as
+Morris was growing weary of the pristine but enticing occupation of
+making ducks and drakes with flat pebbles, his father appeared. After
+“salutations,” as they say in the East, he wasted ten more minutes in
+abusing the cook, ending up with a direct appeal for his son’s estimate
+of her capacities.
+
+“She might be better and she might be worse,” answered Morris,
+judicially.
+
+“Quite so,” replied the Colonel, drily; “the remark is sound and
+applies to most things. At present, however, I think that she is worse;
+also I hate the sight of her fat red face. But bother the cook, why do
+you think so much about her; I have something else to say.”
+
+“I don’t think,” said Morris. “She doesn’t excite me one way or the
+other, except when she is late with my breakfast.”
+
+Then, as he expected, after the cook came the crisis.
+
+“You will remember, my dear boy,” began the Colonel, affectionately, “a
+little talk we had a while ago.”
+
+“Which one, father?”
+
+“The last of any importance, I believe. I refer to the occasion when
+you stopped out all night contemplating the sea; an incident which
+impressed it upon my memory.”
+
+Morris looked at him. Why was the old gentleman so inconveniently
+observant?
+
+“And doubtless you remember the subject?”
+
+“There were a good many subjects, father; they ranged from mortgages to
+matrimony.”
+
+“Quite so, to matrimony. Well, have you thought any more about it?”
+
+“Not particularly, father. Why should I?”
+
+“Confound it, Morris,” exclaimed the Colonel, losing patience; “don’t
+chop logic like a petty sessions lawyer. Let’s come to the point.”
+
+“That is my desire,” answered Morris; and quite clearly there rose up
+before him an inconsequent picture of his mother teaching him the
+Catechism many, many years ago. Thereat, as was customary with his mind
+when any memory of her touched it, his temper softened like iron
+beneath the influence of fire.
+
+“Very good, then what do you think of Mary as a wife?”
+
+“How should I know under the circumstances?”
+
+The Colonel fumed, and Morris added, “I beg your pardon, I understand
+what you mean.”
+
+Then his father came to the charge.
+
+“To be brief, will you marry her?”
+
+“Will she marry me?” asked Morris. “Isn’t she too sensible?”
+
+His father’s eye twinkled, but he restrained himself. This, he felt,
+was not an occasion upon which to indulge his powers of sarcasm.
+
+“Upon my word, if you want my opinion, I believe she will; but you have
+to ask her first. Look here, my boy, be advised by me, and do it as
+soon as possible. The notion is rather new to me, I admit; but, taking
+her all round, where would you find a better woman? You and I don’t
+always agree about things; we are of a different generation, and look
+at the world from different standpoints. But I think that at the bottom
+we respect each other, and I am sure,” he added with a touch of
+restrained dignity, “that we are naturally and properly attached to
+each other. Under these circumstances, and taking everything else into
+consideration, I am convinced also that you will give weight to my
+advice. I assure you that I do not offer it lightly. It is that you
+should marry your cousin Mary.”
+
+“There is her side of the case to be considered,” suggested Morris.
+
+“Doubtless, and she is a very shrewd and sensible young woman under all
+her ‘dolce far niente’ air, who is quite capable of consideration.”
+
+“I am not worthy of her,” his son broke in passionately.
+
+“That is for her to decide. I ask you to give her an opportunity of
+expressing an opinion.”
+
+Morris looked at the sea and sky, then he looked at his father standing
+before him in an attitude that was almost suppliant, with head bowed,
+hands clasped, and on his clear-cut face an air of real sincerity. What
+right had he to resist this appeal? He was heart-whole, without any
+kind of complication, and for his cousin Mary he had true affection and
+respect. Moreover, they had been brought up together. She understood
+him, and in the midst of so much that was uncertain and bewildering she
+seemed something genuine and solid, something to which a man could
+cling. It may not have been a right spirit in which to approach this
+question of marriage, but in the case of a young man like Morris, who
+was driven forward by no passion, by no scheme even of personal
+advancement, this substitution of reason for impulse and instinct was
+perhaps natural.
+
+“Very well, I will,” he answered; “but if she is wise, she won’t.”
+
+His father turned his head away and sighed softly, and that sigh seemed
+to lift a ton’s weight off his heart.
+
+“I am glad to hear it,” he answered simply, “the rest must settle
+itself. By the way, if you are going up to the house, tell the cook
+that I have changed my mind, we will have the soles fried with lemon;
+she always makes a mess of them ‘au maitre d’hotel.’”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+A PROPOSAL AND A PROMISE
+
+
+Although it consisted of but a dozen people, the dinner-party at the
+Abbey that night was something of a function. To begin with, the old
+refectory, with its stone columns and arches still standing as they
+were in the pre-Reformation days, lit with cunningly-arranged and
+shaded electric lights designed and set up by Morris, was an absolutely
+ideal place in which to dine. Then, although the Monk family were
+impoverished, they still retained the store of plate accumulated by
+past generations. Much of this silver was old and very beautiful, and
+when set out upon the great side-boards produced an effect well suited
+to that chamber and its accessories. The company also was pleasant and
+presentable. There were the local baronet and his wife; the two
+beauties of the neighbourhood, Miss Jane Rose and Miss Eliza Layard,
+with their respective belongings; the clergyman of the parish, a Mr.
+Tomley, who was leaving the county for the north of England on account
+of his wife’s health; and a clever and rising young doctor from the
+county town. These, with Mr. Porson and his daughter, made up the
+number who upon this particular night with every intention of enjoying
+themselves, sat down to that rather rare entertainment in Monksland, a
+dinner-party.
+
+Colonel Monk had himself very carefully placed the guests. As a result,
+Morris, to whose lot it had fallen to take in the wealthy Miss Layard,
+a young lady of handsome but somewhat ill-tempered countenance, found
+himself at the foot of the oblong table with his partner on one side
+and his cousin on the other. Mary, who was conducted to her seat by Mr.
+Layard, the delicate brother, an insignificant, pallid-looking specimen
+of humanity, for reasons of her own, not unconnected perhaps with the
+expected presence of the Misses Layard and Rose, had determined to look
+and dress her best that night. She wore a robe of some rich white silk,
+tight fitting and cut rather low, and upon her neck a single row of
+magnificent diamonds. The general effect of her sheeny dress, snow-like
+skin, and golden, waving hair, as she glided into the shaded room,
+suggested to Morris’s mind a great white lily floating down the quiet
+water of some dark stream, and, when presently the light fell on her, a
+vision of a silver, mist-laden star lying low upon the ocean at the
+break of dawn. Later, after she became acquainted with these poetical
+imaginings, Mary congratulated herself and her maid very warmly on the
+fact that she had actually summoned sufficient energy to telegraph to
+town for this particular dress.
+
+Of the other ladies present, Miss Layard was arrayed in a hot-looking
+red garment, which she imagined would suit her dark eyes and
+complexion. Miss Rose, on the contrary, had come out in the virginal
+style of muslin and blue bows, whereof the effect, unhappily, was
+somewhat marred by a fiery complexion, acquired as the result of three
+days’ violent play at a tennis tournament. To this unfortunate
+circumstance Miss Layard, who had her own views of Miss Rose, was not
+slow in calling attention.
+
+“What has happened to poor Jane?” she said, addressing Mary. “She looks
+as though she had been red-ochred down to her shoulders.”
+
+“Who is poor Jane?” asked that young lady languidly. “Oh! you mean Miss
+Rose. I know, she has been playing in that tennis tournament at—what’s
+the name of the place? Dad would drive me there this afternoon, and it
+made me quite hot to look at her, jumping and running and hitting for
+hour after hour. But she’s awfully good at it; she won the prize. Don’t
+you envy anybody who can win a prize at a tennis tournament, Miss
+Layard?”
+
+“No,” she answered sharply, for Miss Layard did not shine at tennis. “I
+dislike women who go about what my brother calls ‘pot-hunting’ just as
+if they were professionals.”
+
+“Oh, do you? I admire them. It must be so nice to be able to do
+anything well, even if it’s only lawn tennis. It’s the poor failures
+like myself for whom I am so sorry.”
+
+“I don’t admire anybody who can come to out to a dinner party with a
+head and neck like that,” retorted Eliza.
+
+“Why not? You can’t burn, and that should make you more charitable. And
+I tie myself up in veils and umbrellas, which is absurd. Besides, what
+does it matter? You see, it is different with most of us; Miss Rose is
+so good-looking that she can afford herself these little luxuries.”
+
+“That is a matter of opinion,” replied Miss Layard.
+
+“Oh! I don’t think so; at least, the opinion is all one way. Don’t you
+think Miss Rose beautiful, Mr. Layard?” she said, turning to her
+companion.
+
+“Ripping,” said that gentleman, with emphasis. “But I wish she wouldn’t
+beat one at tennis; it is an insult to the stronger sex.”
+
+Mary looked at him reflectively. His sister looked at him also.
+
+“And I am sure that you think her beautiful, don’t you, Morris?” went
+on the imperturbable Mary.
+
+“Certainly, of course; lovely,” he replied, with a vacuous stare at the
+elderly wife of the baronet.
+
+“There, Miss Layard, now you collect the opinions of the gentlemen all
+along your side.” And Mary turned away, ostensibly to talk to her
+cavalier; but really to find out what could possibly interest Morris so
+deeply in the person or conversation of Lady Jones.
+
+Lady Jones was talking across the table to Mr. Tomley, the departing
+rector, a benevolent-looking person, with a broad forehead adorned like
+that of Father Time by a single lock of snowy hair.
+
+“And so you are really going to the far coast of Northumberland, Mr.
+Tomley, to exchange livings with the gentleman with the odd name? How
+brave of you!”
+
+Mr. Tomley smiled assent, adding: “You can imagine what a blow it is to
+me, Lady Jones, to separate myself from my dear parishioners and
+friends”—here he eyed the Colonel, with whom he had waged a continual
+war during his five years of residence in the parish, and added: “But
+we must all give way to the cause of duty and the necessities of
+health. Mrs. Tomley says that this part of the country does not agree
+with her, and is quite convinced that unless she is taken back to her
+native Northumberland air the worst may be expected.”
+
+“I fancy that it has arrived in that poor man’s case,” thought Mary to
+herself. Lady Jones, who also knew Mrs. Tomley and the power of her
+tongue, nodded her head sympathetically and said:
+
+“Of course, of course. A wife’s health must be the first consideration
+of every good man. But isn’t it rather lonely up there, Mr. Tomley?”
+
+“Lonely, Lady Jones?” the clergyman replied with energy, and shaking
+his white lock. “I assure you that the place is a howling desert; a
+great moor behind, and the great sea in front, and some rocks and the
+church between the two. That’s about all, but my wife likes it because
+she used to stay at the rectory when she was a little girl. Her uncle
+was the incumbent there. She declares that she has never been well
+since she left the parish.”
+
+“And what did you say is the name of the present inhabitant of this
+earthly paradise, the man with whom you have exchanged?” interrupted
+the Colonel.
+
+“Fregelius—the Reverend Peter Fregelius.”
+
+“What an exceedingly odd name! Is he an Englishman?”
+
+“Yes; but I think that his father was a Dane, and he married a Danish
+lady.”
+
+“Indeed! Is she living?”
+
+“Oh, no. She died a great many years ago. The old gentleman has only
+one child left—a girl.”
+
+“What is her name?” asked someone idly, in a break of the general
+conversation, so that everybody paused to listen to his reply.
+
+“Stella—Stella Fregelius; a very unusual girl.”
+
+Then the conversation broke out again with renewed vigour, and all that
+those at Morris’s end of the table could catch were snatches such as:
+“Wonderful eyes”; “Independent young person”; “Well read and musical”;
+“Oh, yes! poor as church mice, that’s why he accepted my offer.”
+
+At this point the Doctor began a rather vehement argument with Mr.
+Porson as to the advisability of countervailing duties to force foreign
+nations to abandon the sugar bounties, and no more was heard of Mr.
+Tomley and his plans.
+
+On the whole, Mary enjoyed that dinner-party. Miss Layard, somewhat
+sore after her first encounter, attempted to retaliate later.
+
+But by this time Mary’s argumentative energy had evaporated. Therefore,
+adroitly appealing to Mr. Layard to take her part, she retired from the
+fray till, seeing that it grew acrimonious, for this brother and sister
+did not love each other, she pretended to hear no more.
+
+“Have you been stopping out all night again and staring at the sea,
+Morris?” she inquired; “because I understand it is a habit of yours.
+You seem so sleepy. I know that I must have looked just like you when
+that old political gentleman took me in to dinner, and I made an
+exhibition of myself.”
+
+“What was that?” asked Morris.
+
+So she told him the story of her unlawful slumbers, and so amusingly
+that he burst out laughing and remained in an excellent mood for the
+rest of the feast, or at any rate until the ladies had departed. After
+this event once more he became somewhat silent and distant.
+
+It was not wonderful. To most men, except the very experienced,
+proposals are terrifying ordeals, and Morris had made up his mind, if
+he could find a chance, to propose to Mary that night. The thing was to
+be done, so the sooner he did it the better.
+
+Then it would be over, one way or the other. Besides, and this was
+strange and opportune enough, never had he felt so deeply and truly
+attracted to Mary. Whether it was because her soft, indolent beauty
+showed at its best this evening in that gown and setting, or because
+her conversation, with its sub-acid tinge of kindly humour amused him,
+or—and this seemed more probable—because her whole attitude towards
+himself was so gentle and so full of sweet benevolence, he could not
+say. At any rate, this remained true, she attracted him more than any
+woman he had ever met, and sincerely he hoped and prayed that when he
+asked her to be his wife she might find it in her heart to say Yes.
+
+The rest of the entertainment resembled that of most country
+dinner-parties. Conducted to the piano by the Colonel, who understood
+music very well, the talented ladies of the party, including Miss Rose,
+sang songs with more or less success, while Miss Layard criticised,
+Mary was appreciative, and the men talked. At length the local
+baronet’s wife looked at the local baronet, who thereupon asked leave
+to order the carriage. This example the rest of the company followed in
+quick succession until all were gone except Mr. Porson and his
+daughter.
+
+“Well, my dear,” said Mr. Porson, “I suppose that we had better be off
+too, or you won’t get your customary nine hours.”
+
+Mary yawned slightly and assented, asserting that she had utterly
+exhausted herself in defending Miss Rose from the attacks of her rival,
+Miss Layard.
+
+“No, no,” broke in the Colonel, “come and have a smoke first, John.
+I’ve got that old map of the property unrolled on purpose to show you,
+and I don’t want to keep it about, for it fills up the whole place.
+Morris will look after Mary for half an hour, I daresay.”
+
+“Certainly,” said Morris, but the heart within him sank to the level of
+his dress-shoes. Here was the opportunity for which he had wished, but
+as he could not be called a forward, or even a pushing lover, he was
+alarmed at its very prompt arrival. This answer to his prayers was
+somewhat too swift and thorough. There is a story of an enormously fat
+old Boer who was seated on the veld with his horse at his side, when
+suddenly a band of armed natives rushed to attack him. “Oh, God, help!”
+he cried in his native _taal_, as he prepared to heave his huge form
+into the saddle. Having thus invoked divine assistance, this Dutch
+Falstaff went at the task with such a will that in a trice he found
+himself not on the horse, but over it, lying upon his back, indeed,
+among the grasses. “O God!” that deluded burgher exclaimed,
+reproachfully, as the Kaffirs came up and speared him, “Thou hast
+helped a great deal too much!”
+
+At this moment Morris felt very much like this stout but simple dweller
+in the wilderness. He would have preferred to coquet with the enemy for
+a while from the safety of his saddle. But Providence willed it
+otherwise.
+
+“Won’t you come out, Mary?” he said, with the courage which inspires
+men in desperate situations. He felt that it would be impossible to say
+those words with the electric lights looking at him like so many eyes.
+The thought of it, even, made him warm all over.
+
+“I don’t know; it depends. Is there anything comfortable to sit on?”
+
+“The deck chair,” he suggested.
+
+“That sounds nice. I have slumbered for hours in deck chairs. Look,
+there’s a fur rug on that sofa, and here’s my white cape; now you get
+your coat, and I’ll come.”
+
+“Thank you, no; I don’t want any coat; I am hot enough already.”
+
+Mary turned and looked him up and down with her wondering blue eyes.
+
+“Do you really think it safe,” she said, “to expose yourself to all
+sorts of unknown dangers in this unprotected condition?”
+
+“Of course,” he answered. “I am not afraid of the night air even in
+October.”
+
+“Very well, very well, Morris,” she went on, and there was meaning in
+her voice; “then whatever happens don’t blame me. It’s so easy to be
+rash and thoughtless and catch a chill, and then you may become an
+invalid for life, or die, you know. One can’t get rid of it again—at
+least, not often.”
+
+Morris looked at her with a puzzled air, and stepped through the window
+which he had opened, on to the lawn, whither, with a quaint little
+shrug of her shoulders, Mary followed him, muttering to herself:
+
+“Now if he takes cold, it won’t be _my_ fault.” Then she stopped,
+clasped her hands, and said, “Oh! what a lovely night. I am glad that
+we came out here.”
+
+She was right, it was indeed lovely. High in the heavens floated a
+bright half-moon, across whose face the little white-edged clouds
+drifted in quick succession, throwing their gigantic shadows to the
+world beneath. All silver was the sleeping sea where the moonlight fell
+upon it, and when this was eclipsed, then it was all jet. To the right
+and left, up to the very borders of the cliff, lay the soft wreaths of
+roke or land-fog, covering the earth as with a cloak of down, but
+pierced here and there by the dim and towering shapes of trees. Yet
+although these curling wreaths of mist hung on the edges of the cliff
+like white water about to fall, they never fell, since clear to the
+sight, though separated from them by a gulf of translucent blackness,
+lay the yellow belt of sand up which, inch by inch, the tide was
+creeping.
+
+And the air—no wind stirred it, though the wind was at work aloft—it
+was still and bright as crystal, and crisp and cold as new-iced wine,
+for the first autumn frost was falling.
+
+They stood for a few moments looking at all these wonderful beauties of
+the mysterious night—which dwellers in the country so rarely
+appreciate, because to them they are common, daily things—and listening
+to the soft, long-drawn murmuring of the sea upon the shingle. Then
+they went forward to the edge of the cliff, but although Morris threw
+the fur rug over it Mary did not seat herself in the
+comfortable-looking deck chair. Her desire for repose had departed. She
+preferred to lean upon the low grey wall in whose crannies grew
+lichens, tiny ferns, and, in their season, harebells and wallflowers.
+Morris came and leant at her side; for a while they both stared at the
+sea.
+
+“Pray, are you making up poetry?” she inquired at last.
+
+“Why do you ask such silly questions?” he answered, not without
+indignation.
+
+“Because you keep muttering to yourself, and I thought that you were
+trying to get the lines to scan. Also the sea, and the sky, and the
+night suggest poetry, don’t they?”
+
+Morris turned his head and looked at her.
+
+“_You_ suggest it,” he said, with desperate earnestness, “in all that
+shining white, especially when the moon goes in. Then you look like a
+beautiful spirit new lit upon the edge of the world.”
+
+At first Mary was pleased, the compliment was obvious, and, coming from
+Morris, great. She had never heard him say so much as that before. Then
+she thought an instant, and the echo of the word “spirit” came back to
+her mind, and jarred upon it with a little sudden shock. Even when he
+had a lovely woman at his side must his fancy be wandering to these
+unearthly denizens and similes.
+
+“Please, Morris,” she said almost sharply, “do not compare me to a
+spirit. I am a woman, nothing more, and if it is not enough that I
+should be a woman, then——” she paused, to add, “I beg your pardon, I
+know you meant to be nice, but once I had a friend who went in for
+spirits—table-turning ones I mean—with very bad results, and I detest
+the name of them.”
+
+Morris took this rebuff better than might have been expected.
+
+“Would you object if one ventured to call you an angel?” he asked.
+
+“Not if the word was used in a terrestrial sense. It excites a vision
+of possibilities, and the fib is so big that anyone must pardon it.”
+
+“Very well, then; I call you that.”
+
+“Thank you, I should be delighted to return the compliment. Can you
+think of any celestial definition appropriate to a young gentleman with
+dark eyes?”
+
+“Oh! Mary, please stop making fun of me,” said Morris, with something
+like a groan.
+
+“Why?” she asked innocently. “Besides I wasn’t making fun. It’s only my
+way of carrying on conversation; they taught it me at school, you
+know.”
+
+Morris made no answer; in fact, he did not know what on earth to say,
+or rather how to find the fitting words. After all, it was an accident
+and not his own intelligence that freed him from his difficulty. Mary
+moved a little, causing the white cloak, which was unfastened, to slip
+from her shoulders. Morris put out his hand to catch it, and met her
+hand. In another instant he had thrown his arm round her, drawn her to
+him, and kissed her on the lips. Then, abashed at what he had done, he
+let her go and picked up the cloak.
+
+“Might I ask?” began Mary in her usual sweet, low tones. Then her voice
+broke, and her blue eyes filled with tears.
+
+“I beg your pardon; I am a brute,” began Morris, utterly abased by the
+sight of these tears, which glimmered like pearls in the moonlight,
+“but, of course, you know what I mean.”
+
+Mary shook her head vacantly. Apparently she could not trust herself to
+speak.
+
+“Dear, will you take me?”
+
+She made no answer; only, after pausing for some few seconds as though
+lost in thought, with a little action more eloquent than any speech,
+she leant herself ever so slightly towards him.
+
+Afterwards, as she lay in his arms, words came to him readily enough:
+
+“I am not worth your having,” he said. “I know I am an odd fellow, not
+like other men; my very failings have not been the same as other men’s.
+For instance—before heaven it is true—you are the first woman whom I
+ever kissed, as I swear to you that you shall be the last. Then, what
+else am I? A failure in the very work that I have chosen, and the heir
+to a bankrupt property! Oh! it is not fair; I have no right to ask
+you!”
+
+“I think it quite fair, and here I am the judge, Morris.” Then,
+sentence by sentence, she went on, not all at once, but with breaks and
+pauses.
+
+“You asked me just now if I loved you, and I told you—Yes. But you did
+not ask me when I began to love you. I will tell you all the same. I
+can’t remember a time when I didn’t; no, not since I was a little girl.
+It was you who grew away from me, not me from you, when you took to
+studying mysticism and aerophones, and were repelled by all women,
+myself included.”
+
+“I know, I know,” he said. “Don’t remind me of my dead follies. Some
+things are born in the blood.”
+
+“Quite so, and they remain in the bone. I understand. Morris, unless
+you maltreat me wilfully—which I am sure you would never do—I shall
+always understand.”
+
+“What are you afraid of?” he asked in a shaken voice. “I feel that you
+are afraid.”
+
+“Oh, one or two things; that you might overwork yourself, for instance.
+Or, lest you should find that after all you are more human than you
+imagine, and be taken possession of by some strange Stella coming out
+of nowhere.”
+
+“What do you mean, and why do you use that name?” he said amazed.
+
+“What I say, dear. As for that name, I heard it accidentally at table
+to-night, and it came to my lips—of itself. It seemed to typify what I
+meant, and to suggest a wandering star—such as men like you are fond of
+following.”
+
+“Upon my honour,” said Morris, “I will do none of these things.”
+
+“If you can help it, you will do none of them. I know it well enough. I
+hope and believe that there will never be a shadow between us while we
+live. But, Morris, I take you, risks and all, because it has been my
+chance to love you and nobody else. Otherwise, I should think twice;
+but love doesn’t stop at risks.”
+
+“What have I done to deserve this?” groaned Morris.
+
+“I cannot see. I should very much like to know,” replied Mary, with a
+touch of her old humour.
+
+It was at this moment that Colonel Monk, happening to come round the
+corner of the house, walking on the grass, and followed by Mr. Porson,
+saw a sight which interested him. With one hand he pointed it out to
+Porson, at the same moment motioning him to silence with the other.
+Then, taking his brother-in-law by the arm, he dragged him back round
+the corner of the house.
+
+“They make a pretty picture there in the moonlight, don’t they, John,
+my boy?” he said. “Come, we had better go back into the study and talk
+over matters till they have done. Even the warmth of their emotions
+won’t keep out the night air for ever.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE GOOD DAYS
+
+
+For the next month, or, to be accurate, the next five weeks, everything
+went merrily at Monk’s Abbey. It was as though some cloud had been
+lifted off the place and those who dwelt therein. No longer did the
+Colonel look solemn when he came down in the morning, and no longer was
+he cross after he had read his letters. Now his interviews with the
+steward in the study were neither prolonged nor anxious; indeed, that
+functionary emerged thence on Saturday mornings with a shining
+countenance, drying the necessary cheque, heretofore so difficult to
+extract, by waving it ostentatiously in the air. Lastly, the Colonel
+did not seem to be called upon to make such frequent visits to his man
+of business, and to tarry at the office of the bank manager in
+Northwold. Once there was a meeting, but, contrary to the general
+custom, the lawyer and the banker came to see him in company, and
+stopped to luncheon. At this meal, moreover, the three of them appeared
+to be in the best of spirits.
+
+Morris noted all these things in his quiet, observant way, and from
+them drew certain conclusions of his own. But he shrank from making
+inquiries, nor did the Colonel offer any confidences. After all, why
+should he, who had never meddled with his father’s business, choose
+this moment to explore it, especially as he knew from previous
+experience that such investigations would not be well received? It was
+one of the Colonel’s peculiarities to keep his affairs to himself until
+they grew so bad that circumstances forced him to seek the counsel or
+the aid of others. Still, Morris could well guess from what mine the
+money was digged that caused so comfortable a change in their
+circumstances, and the solution of this mystery gave him little joy.
+Cash in consideration of an unconcluded marriage; that was how it read.
+To his sensitive nature the transaction seemed one of doubtful worth.
+
+However, no one else appeared to be troubled, if, indeed, these things
+existed elsewhere than in his own imagination. This, Morris admitted,
+was possible, for their access of prosperity might, after all, be no
+more than a resurrection of credit, vivified by the news of his
+engagement with the only child of a man known to be wealthy. His uncle
+Porson, with a solemnity that was almost touching, had bestowed upon
+Mary and himself a jerky but earnest blessing before he drove home on
+the night of the dinner-party. He went so far, indeed, as to kiss them
+both; an example which the Colonel followed with a more finished but
+equally heartfelt grace.
+
+Now his uncle John beamed upon him daily like the noonday sun. Also he
+began to take him into his confidence, and consult him as to the
+erection of houses, affairs of business, and investments. In the course
+of these interviews Morris was astonished, not to say dismayed, to
+discover how large were the sums of money as to the disposal of which
+he was expected to express opinions.
+
+“You see, it will all be yours, my boy,” said Mr. Porson one day, in
+explanation; “so it is best that you should know something of these
+affairs. Yes, it will all be yours, before very long,” and he sighed.
+
+“I trust that I shall have nothing to do with it for many years,”
+blurted out Morris.
+
+“Say months, say months,” answered his uncle, stretching out his hands
+as though to push something from him. Then, to all appearances overcome
+by a sudden anguish, physical or mental, he turned and hurried from the
+room.
+
+Taking them all together, those five weeks were the happiest that
+Morris had ever known. No longer was he profoundly dissatisfied with
+things in general, no longer ravaged by that desire of the moth for the
+star which in some natures is almost a disease. His outlook upon the
+world was healthier and more hopeful; for the first time he saw its
+wholesome, joyous side. Had he failed to do so, indeed, he must have
+been a very strange man, for he had much to make the poorest heart
+rejoice.
+
+Thus Mary, always a charming woman, since her engagement had become
+absolutely delightful; wittier, more wideawake, more beautiful. Morris
+could look forward to the years to be spent in her company not only
+without misgiving, but with a confidence that a while ago he would have
+thought impossible. Moreover, as good fortunes never come singly, his
+were destined to be multiplied. It was in those days after so many
+years of search and unfruitful labour that at last he discovered a clue
+which in the end resulted in the perfection of the instrument that was
+the parent of the aerophone of commerce, and gave him a name among the
+inventors of the century which will not easily be forgotten.
+
+Strangely enough it was Morris’s good genius, Mary, who suggested the
+substance, or, rather, the mixture of substances, whereof that portion
+of the aerophone was finally constructed which is still known as the
+Monk Sound Waves Receiver. Whether, as she alleged, she made this
+discovery by pure accident, or whether, as seems possible, she had
+thought the problem out in her own feminine fashion with results that
+proved excellent, does not matter in the least. The issue remains the
+same. An apparatus which before would work only on rare occasions—and
+then without any certitude—between people in the highest state of
+sympathy or nervous excitement, has now been brought to such a stage of
+perfection that by its means anybody can talk to anybody, even if their
+interests are antagonistic, or their personal enmity bitter.
+
+After the first few experiments with this new material Morris was not
+slow to discover that although it would need long and careful testing
+and elaboration, for him it meant, in the main, the realisation of his
+great dream, and success after years of failure. And—that was the
+strange part of it—this realisation and success he owed to no effort of
+his own, but to some chance suggestion made by Mary. He told her this,
+and thanked her as a man thanks one through whom he has found
+salvation. In answer she merely laughed, saying that she was nothing
+but the wire along which a happy inspiration had reached his brain, and
+that more than this she neither wished, nor hoped, nor was capable of
+being.
+
+Then suddenly on this happy, tranquil atmosphere which wrapped them
+about—like the sound of a passing bell at a child’s feast—floated the
+first note of impending doom and death.
+
+The autumn held fine and mild, and Mary, who had been lunching at the
+Abbey, was playing croquet with Morris upon the side lawn. This game
+was the only one for which she chanced to care, perhaps because it did
+not involve much exertion. Morris, who engaged in the pastime with the
+same earnestness that he gave to every other pursuit in which he
+happened to be interested, was, as might be expected, getting the best
+of the encounter.
+
+“Won’t you take a couple of bisques, dear?” he asked affectionately,
+after a while. “I don’t like always beating you by such a lot.”
+
+“I’d die first,” she answered; “bisques are the badge of advertised
+inferiority and a mark of the giver’s contempt.”
+
+“Stuff!” said Morris.
+
+“Stuff, indeed! As though it wasn’t bad enough to be beaten at all; but
+to be beaten with bisques!”
+
+“That’s another argument,” said Morris. “First you say you are too
+proud to accept them, and next that you won’t accept them because it is
+worse to be defeated with points than without them.”
+
+“Anyway, if you had the commonest feelings of humanity you wouldn’t
+beat me,” replied Mary, adroitly shifting her ground for the third
+time.
+
+“How can I help it if you won’t have the bisques?”
+
+“How? By pretending that you were doing your best, and letting me win
+all the same, of course; though if I caught you at it I should be
+furious. But what’s the use of trying to teach a blunt creature like
+you tact? My dear Morris, I assure you I do not believe that your
+efforts at deception would take in the simplest-minded cow. Why, even
+Dad sees through you, and the person who can’t impose upon my Dad——.
+Oh!” she added, suddenly, in a changed voice, “there is George coming
+through the gate. Something has happened to my father. Look at his
+face, Morris; look at his face!”
+
+In another moment the footman stood before them.
+
+“Please, miss, the master,” he began, and hesitated.
+
+“Not dead?” said Mary, in a slow, quiet voice. “Do not say that he is
+dead!”
+
+“No, miss, but he has had a stroke of the heart or something, and the
+doctor thought you had better be fetched, so I have brought the
+carriage.”
+
+“Come with me, Morris,” she said, as, dropping the croquet mallet, she
+flew rather than ran to the brougham.
+
+Ten minutes later they were at Seaview. In the hall they met Mr.
+Charters, the doctor. Why was he leaving? Because——
+
+“No, no,” he said, answering their looks; “the danger is past. He seems
+almost as well as ever.”
+
+“Thank God!” stammered Mary. Then a thought struck her, and she looked
+up sharply and asked, “Will it come back again?”
+
+“Yes,” was his straightforward answer.
+
+“When?”
+
+“From time to time, at irregular periods. But in its fatal shape, as I
+hope, not for some years.”
+
+“The verdict might have been worse, dear,” said Morris.
+
+“Yes, yes, but to think that _it_ has passed so near to him, and he
+quite alone at the time. Morris,” she went on, turning to him with an
+energy that was almost fierce, “if you won’t have my father to live
+with us, I won’t marry you. Do you understand?”
+
+“Perfectly, dear, you leave no room for misconception. By all means let
+him live with us—if he can get on with my father,” he added meaningly.
+
+“Ah!” she replied, “I never thought of that. Also I should not have
+spoken so roughly, but I have had such a shock that I feel inclined to
+treat you like—like—a toad under a harrow. So please be sympathetic,
+and don’t misunderstand me, or I don’t know what I shall say.” Then by
+way of making amends, Mary put her arms round his neck and gave him a
+kiss “all of her own accord,” saying, “Morris, I am afraid—I am afraid.
+I feel as if our good time was done.”
+
+After this the servant came to say that she might go up to her father’s
+room, and that scene of our drama was at an end.
+
+Mr. Porson owned a villa at Beaulieu, in the south of France, which he
+had built many years before as a winter house for his wife, whose chest
+was weak. Here he was in the habit of spending the spring months, more,
+perhaps, because of the associations which the place possessed for him
+than of any affection for foreign lands. Now, however, after this last
+attack, three doctors in consultation announced that it would be well
+for him to escape from the fogs and damp of England. So to Beaulieu he
+was ordered.
+
+This decree caused consternation in various quarters. Mr. Porson did
+not wish to go; Mary and Morris were cast down for simple and
+elementary reasons; and Colonel Monk found this change of plan—it had
+been arranged that the Porsons should stop at Seaview till the New
+Year, which was to be the day of the marriage—inconvenient, and,
+indeed, disturbing. Once those young people were parted, reflected the
+Colonel in his wisdom, who could tell what might or might not happen?
+
+In this difficulty he found an inspiration. Why should not the wedding
+take place at once? Very diplomatically he sounded his brother-in-law,
+to find that he had no opposition to fear in this quarter provided that
+Mary and her husband would join him at Beaulieu after a week or two of
+honeymoon. Then he spoke to Morris, who was delighted with the idea.
+For Morris had come to the conclusion that the marriage state would be
+better and more satisfactory than one of prolonged engagement.
+
+It only remained, therefore, to obtain the consent of Mary, which would
+perhaps, have been given without much difficulty had her uncle been
+content to leave his son or Mr. Porson to ask it of her. As it chanced,
+this he was not willing to do. Porson, he was sure, would at once give
+way should his daughter raise any objection, and in Morris’s tact and
+persuasive powers the Colonel had no faith.
+
+In the issue, confident in his own diplomatic abilities, he determined
+to manage the affair himself and to speak to his niece. The mistake was
+grave, for whereas she was as wax to her father or her lover, something
+in her uncle’s manner, or it may have been his very personality, always
+aroused in Mary a spirit of opposition. On this occasion, too, that
+manner was not fortunate, for he put the proposal before her as a thing
+already agreed upon by all concerned, and one to which her consent was
+asked as a mere matter of form.
+
+Instantly Mary became antagonistic. She pretended not to understand;
+she asked for reasons and explanations. Finally, she announced in idle
+words, beneath which ran a current of determination, that neither her
+father nor Morris could really wish this hurried marriage, since had
+they done so one or other of them would have spoken to her on the
+subject. When pressed, she intimated very politely, but in language
+whereof the meaning could hardly be mistaken, that she held this fixing
+of the date to be peculiarly her own privilege; and when still further
+pressed said plainly that she considered her father too ill for her to
+think of being married at present.
+
+“But they both desire it,” expostulated the Colonel.
+
+“They have not told me so,” Mary answered, setting her red lips.
+
+“If that is all, they will tell you so soon enough, my dear girl.”
+
+“Perhaps, uncle, after they have been directed to do so, but that is
+not quite the same thing.”
+
+The Colonel saw that he had made a mistake, and too late changed his
+tactics.
+
+“You see, Mary, your father’s state of health is precarious; he might
+grow worse.”
+
+She tapped her foot upon the ground. Of these allusions to the
+possible, and, indeed, the certain end of her beloved father’s illness,
+she had a kind of horror.
+
+“In that event, that dreadful event,” she answered, “he will need me,
+my whole time and care to nurse him. These I might not be able to give
+if I were already married. I love Morris very dearly. I am his for
+whatever I may be worth; but I was my father’s before Morris came into
+my life, and he has the first claim upon me.”
+
+“What, then, do you propose?” asked the Colonel curtly, for opposition
+and argument bred no meekness in his somewhat arbitrary breast.
+
+“To be married on New Year’s Day, wherever we are, if Morris wishes it
+and the state of my father’s health makes it convenient. If not, Uncle
+Richard, to wait till a more fitting season.” Then she rose—for this
+conversation took place at Seaview—saying that it was time she should
+give her father his medicine.
+
+Thus the project of an early marriage fell through; for, having once
+been driven into announcing her decision in terms so open and
+unmistakable, Mary would not go back on her word.
+
+Morris, who was much disappointed, pleaded with her. Her father also
+spoke upon the subject, but though the voice was the voice of Mr.
+Porson, the arguments, she perceived, were the arguments of Colonel
+Monk. Therefore she hardened her heart and put the matter by, refusing,
+indeed, to discuss it at any length. Yet—and it is not the first time
+that a woman has allowed her whims to prevail over her secret wishes—in
+truth she desired nothing more than to be married to Morris so soon as
+it was his will to take her.
+
+Finally, a compromise was arranged. There was to be no wedding at
+present, but the whole party were to go together to Beaulieu, there to
+await the development of events. It was arranged, moreover, by all
+concerned, that unless something unforeseen occurred to prevent it, the
+marriage should be celebrated upon or about New Year’s Day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+BEAULIEU
+
+
+Beautiful as it might be and fashionable as it might be, Morris did not
+find Beaulieu very entertaining; indeed, in an unguarded moment he
+confessed to Mary that he “hated the hole.” Even the steam launch in
+which they went for picnics did not console him, fond though he was of
+the sea; while as for Monte Carlo, after his third visit he was heard
+to declare that if they wanted to take him there again it must be in
+his coffin.
+
+The Colonel did not share these views. He was out for a holiday, and he
+meant to enjoy himself. To begin with, there was the club at Nice,
+where he fell in with several old comrades and friends. Then, whom
+should he meet but Lady Rawlins: once, for a little while in the
+distant past, they had been engaged; until suddenly the young lady, a
+beauty in her day, jilted him in favour of a wealthy banker of Hebraic
+origin. Now, many years after, the banker was aged, violent, and
+uncomely, habitually exceeded in his cups, and abused his wife before
+the servants. So it came about that to the poor woman the Colonel’s
+courteous, if somewhat sarcastic, consolations were really very
+welcome. It pleased him also to offer them. The jilting he had long ago
+forgiven; indeed, he blessed her nightly for having taken that view of
+her obligations, seeing that Jane Millet, as she was then, however
+pretty her face may once have been, had neither fortune nor
+connections.
+
+“Yes, my dear Jane,” he said to her confidentially one afternoon, “I
+assure you I often admire your foresight. Now, if you had done the
+other thing, where should we have been to-day? In the workhouse, I
+imagine.”
+
+“I suppose so,” answered Lady Rawlins, meekly, and suppressing a sigh,
+since for the courtly and distinguished Colonel she cherished a
+sentimental admiration which actually increased with age; “but you
+didn’t always think like that, Richard.” Then she glanced out of the
+window, and added: “Oh, there is Jonah coming home, and he looks so
+cross,” and the poor lady shivered.
+
+The Colonel put up his eyeglass and contemplated Jonah through the
+window. He was not a pleasing spectacle. A rather low-class Hebrew who
+calls himself a Christian, of unpleasant appearance and sinister
+temper, suffering from the effects of lunch, is not an object to be
+loved.
+
+“Ah, I see,” said the Colonel. “Yes, Sir Jonah ages, doesn’t he? as,
+indeed, we do all of us,” and he glanced at the lady’s spreading
+proportions. Then he went on. “You really should persuade him to be
+tidier in his costume, Jane; his ancestral namesake could scarcely have
+looked more dishevelled after his sojourn with the whale. Well, it is a
+small failing; one can’t have everything, and on the whole, with your
+wealth and the rest, you have been a very fortunate woman.”
+
+“Oh, Richard, how can you say so?” murmured the wretched Lady Rawlins,
+as she took the hand outstretched in farewell. For Jonah in large doses
+was more than the Colonel could stomach.
+
+Indeed, as the door closed behind him she wiped away a tear, whispering
+to herself: “And to think that I threw over dear Richard in order to
+marry that—that—yes, I will say it—that horror!”
+
+Meanwhile, as he strolled down the street, beautifully dressed, and
+still looking very upright and handsome—for he had never lost his
+figure—the Colonel was saying to himself:
+
+“Silly old woman! Well, I hope that by now she knows the difference
+between a gentleman and a half-Christianised, money-hunting,
+wine-bibbing Jew. However, she’s got the fortune, which was what she
+wanted, although she forgets it now, and he’s got a lachrymose, stout,
+old party. But how beautiful she used to be! My word, how beautiful she
+used to be! To go to see her now is better than any sermon; it is an
+admirable moral exercise.”
+
+To Lady Rawlins also the Colonel’s visits proved excellent moral
+exercises tinged with chastenings. Whenever he went away he left behind
+him some aphorism or reflection filled with a wholesome bitter. But
+still she sought his society and, in secret, adored him.
+
+In addition to the club and Lady Rawlins there were the tables at Monte
+Carlo, with their motley company, which to a man of the world could not
+fail to be amusing. Besides, the Colonel had one weakness—sometimes he
+did a little gambling, and when he played he liked to play fairly high.
+Morris accompanied him once to the “Salles de jeu,” and—that was
+enough. What passed there exactly, could never be got out of him, even
+by Mary, whose sense of humour was more than satisfied with the little
+comedies in progress about her, no single point of which did she ever
+miss.
+
+Only, funny as she might be in her general feebleness, and badly as she
+might have behaved in some distant past, for Lady Rawlins she felt
+sorry. Her kind heart told Mary that this unhappy person also possessed
+a heart, although she was now stout and on the wrong side of middle
+age. She was aware, too, that the Colonel knew as much, and his
+scientific pin-pricks and searings of that guileless and unprotected
+organ struck her as little short of cruel. None the less so, indeed,
+because the victim at the stake imagined that they were inflicted in
+kindness by the hand of a still tender and devoted friend.
+
+“I hope that I shan’t quarrel with my father-in-law,” reflected Mary to
+herself, after one of the best of these exhibitions; “he’s got an
+uncommonly long memory, and likes to come even. However, I never shall,
+because he’s afraid of me and knows that I see through him.”
+
+Mary was right. A very sincere respect for her martial powers when
+roused ensured perfect peace between her and the Colonel. With his son,
+however, it was otherwise. Even in this age of the Triumph of the
+Offspring parents do exist who take advantage of their sons’ strict
+observance of the Fifth Commandment. It is easy to turn a man into a
+moral bolster and sit upon him if you know that an exaggerated sense of
+filial duty will prevent him from stuffing himself with pins. So it
+came about that Morris was sometimes sat upon, especially when the
+Colonel was suffering from a bad evening at the tables; well out of
+sight and hearing of Mary, be it understood, who on such occasions was
+apt to develop a quite formidable temper.
+
+It is over this question of the tables that one of these domestic
+differences arose which in its results brought about the return of the
+Monks to Monksland. Upon a certain afternoon the Colonel asked his son
+to accompany him to Monte Carlo. Morris refused, rather curtly,
+perhaps.
+
+“Very well,” replied the Colonel in his grandest manner. “I am sure I
+do not wish for an unwilling companion, and doubtless your attention is
+claimed by affairs more important than the according of your company to
+a father.”
+
+“No,” replied Morris, with his accustomed truthfulness; “I am going out
+sea-fishing, that is all.”
+
+“Quite so. Allow me then to wish good luck to your fishing. Does Mary
+accompany you?”
+
+“No, I think not; she says the boat makes her sick, and she can’t bear
+eels.”
+
+“So much the better, as I can ask for the pleasure of her society this
+afternoon.”
+
+“Yes, you can ask,” said Morris, suddenly turning angry.
+
+“Do you imply, Morris, that the request will be refused?”
+
+“Certainly, father; if I have anything to do with it.”
+
+“And might I inquire why?”
+
+“Because I won’t have Mary taken to that place to mix with the people
+who frequent it.”
+
+“I see. This is exclusiveness with a vengeance. Perhaps you consider
+that those unholy doors should be shut to me also.”
+
+“I have no right to express an opinion as to where my father should or
+should not go; but if you ask me, I think that, under all the
+circumstances, you would do best to keep away.”
+
+“The circumstances! What circumstances?”
+
+“Those of our poverty, which leaves us no money to risk in gambling.”
+
+Then the Colonel lost all control of his temper, as sometimes happened
+to him, and became exceedingly violent and unpleasant. What he said
+does not matter; let it suffice that the remarks were of a character
+which even headstrong men are accustomed to reserve for the benefit of
+their women-folk and other intimate relations.
+
+Attracted by the noise, which was considerable, Mary came in to find
+her uncle marching up and down the room vituperating Morris, who, with
+quite a new expression upon his face—a quiet, dogged kind of
+expression—was leaning upon the mantel-piece and watching him.
+
+“Uncle,” began Mary, “would you mind being a little quieter? My father
+is asleep upstairs, and I am afraid that you will wake him.”
+
+“I am sorry, my dear, very sorry, but there are some insults that no
+man with self-respect can submit to, even from a son.”
+
+“Insults! insults!” Mary repeated, opening her blue eyes; then, looking
+at him with a pained air: “Morris, why do you insult your father?”
+
+“Insult?” he replied. “Then I will tell you how. My father wanted to
+take you to play with him at Monte Carlo this afternoon and I said that
+you shouldn’t go. That’s the insult.”
+
+“You observe, my dear,” broke in the Colonel, “that already he treats
+you as one having authority.”
+
+“Yes,” said Mary, “and why shouldn’t he? Now that my father is so weak
+who am I to obey if not Morris?”
+
+“Oh, well, well,” said the Colonel, diplomatically beginning to cool,
+for he could control his temper when he liked. “Everyone to their
+taste; but some matters are so delicate that I prefer not to discuss
+them,” and he looked round for his hat.
+
+By this time, however, the cyclonic condition of things had affected
+Mary also, and she determined that he should not escape so easily.
+
+“Before you go,” she went on in her slow voice, “I should like to say,
+uncle, that I quite agree with Morris. I don’t think those tables are
+quite the place to take young ladies to, especially if the gentleman
+with them is much engaged in play.”
+
+“Indeed, indeed; then you are both of a mind, which is quite as it
+should be. Of course, too, upon such matters of conduct and etiquette
+we must all bow to the taste and the experience of the young—even those
+of us who have mixed with the world for forty years. Might I ask, my
+dear Mary, if you have any further word of advice for me before I go?”
+
+“Yes, uncle,” replied Mary quite calmly. “I advise you not to lose so
+much of—of your money, or to sit up so late at night, which, you know,
+never agrees with you. Also, I wish you wouldn’t abuse Morris for
+nothing, because he doesn’t deserve it, and I don’t like it; and if we
+are all to live together after I am married, it will be so much more
+comfortable if we can come to an understanding first.”
+
+Then muttering something beneath his breath about ladies in general and
+this young lady in particular, the Colonel departed with speed.
+
+Mary sat down in an armchair, and fanned herself with a
+pocket-handkerchief.
+
+“Thinking of the right thing to say always makes me hot,” she remarked.
+
+“Well, if by the right thing you mean the strong thing, you certainly
+discovered it,” replied Morris, looking at her with affectionate
+admiration.
+
+“I know; but it had to be done, dear. He’s losing a lot of money, which
+is mere waste”—here Morris groaned, but asked no questions—“besides,”
+and her voice became earnest, “I will not have him talking to you like
+that. The fact that one man is the father of another man doesn’t give
+him the right to abuse him like a pickpocket. Also, if you are so good
+that you put up with it, I have myself to consider—that is, if we are
+all to live as a happy family. Do you understand?”
+
+“Perfectly,” said Morris. “I daresay you are right, but I hate rows.”
+
+“So do I, and that is why I have accepted one or two challenges to
+single combat quite at the beginning of things. You mark my words, he
+will be like a lamb at breakfast to-morrow.”
+
+“You shouldn’t speak disrespectfully of my father; at any rate, to me,”
+suggested the old-fashioned Morris, rather mildly.
+
+“No, dear, and when I have learnt to respect him I promise you that I
+won’t. There, don’t be vexed with me; but my uncle Richard makes me
+cross, and then I scratch. As he said the other day, all women are like
+cats, you know. When they are young they play, when they get old they
+use their claws—I quote uncle Richard—and although I am not old yet, I
+can’t help showing the claws. Dad is ill, that is the fact of it,
+Morris, and it gets upon my nerves.”
+
+“I thought he was better, love.”
+
+“Yes, he is better; he may live for years; I hope and believe that he
+will, but it is terribly uncertain. And now, look here, Morris, why
+don’t you go home?”
+
+“Do you want to get rid of me, love?” he asked, looking up.
+
+“No, I don’t. You know that, I am sure. But what is the use of your
+stopping here? There is nothing for you to do, and I feel that you are
+wasting your time and that you hate it. Tell the truth. Don’t you long
+to be back at Monksland, working at that aerophone?”
+
+“I should be glad to get on with my experiments, but I don’t like
+leaving you,” he answered.
+
+“But you had better leave me for a while. It is not comfortable for you
+idling here, particularly when your father is in this uncertain temper.
+If all be well, in another couple of months or so we shall come
+together for good, and be able to make our own arrangements, according
+to circumstances. Till then, if I were you, I should go home,
+especially as I find that I can get on with my uncle much better when
+you are not here.”
+
+“Then what is to happen after we marry, and I can’t be sent away?”
+
+“Who knows? But if we are not comfortable at Monk’s Abbey, we can
+always set up for ourselves—with Dad at Seaview, for instance. He’s
+peaceable enough; besides, he must be looked after; and, to be frank,
+my uncle hectors him, poor dear.”
+
+“I will think it over,” said Morris. “And now come for a walk on the
+beach, and we will forget all these worries.”
+
+Next morning the Colonel appeared at breakfast in a perfectly angelic
+frame of mind, having to all appearance utterly forgotten the
+“contretemps” of the previous afternoon. Perhaps this was policy, or
+perhaps the fact of his having won several hundred pounds the night
+before mollified his mood. At least it had become genial, and he proved
+a most excellent companion.
+
+“Look here, old fellow,” he said to Morris, throwing him a letter
+across the table; “if you have nothing to do for a week or so, I wish
+you would save an aged parent a journey and settle up this job with
+Simpkins.”
+
+Morris read the letter. It had to do with the complete reerection of a
+set of buildings on the Abbey farm, and the putting up of a certain
+drainage mill. Over this question differences had arisen between the
+agent Simpkins and the rural authorities, who alleged that the said
+mill would interfere with an established right of way. Indeed, things
+had come to such a point that if a lawsuit was to be avoided the
+presence of a principal was necessary.
+
+“Simpkins is a quarrelsome ass,” explained the Colonel, “and somebody
+will have to smooth those fellows down. Will you go? because if you
+won’t I must, and I don’t want to break into the first pleasant holiday
+I have had for five years—thanks to your kindness, my dear John.”
+
+“Certainly I will go, if necessary,” answered Morris. “But I thought
+you told me a few months ago that it was quite impossible to execute
+those alterations, on account of the expense.”
+
+“Yes, yes; but I have consulted with your uncle here, and the matter
+has been arranged. Hasn’t it, John?”
+
+Mr. Porson was seated at the end of the table, and Morris, looking at
+him, noticed with a shock how old he had suddenly become. His plump,
+cheerful face had fallen in; the cheeks were quite hollow now; his jaws
+seemed to protrude, and the skin upon his bald head to be drawn quite
+tight like the parchment on a drum.
+
+“Of course, of course, Colonel,” he answered, lifting his chin from his
+breast, upon which it was resting, “arranged, quite satisfactorily
+arranged.” Then he looked about rather vacantly, for his mind, it was
+clear, was far away, and added, “Do you want: I mean, were you talking
+about the new drainage mill for the salt marshes?” Mary interrupted and
+explained.
+
+“Yes, yes; how stupid of me! I am afraid I am getting a little deaf,
+and this air makes me so sleepy in the morning. Now, just tell me
+again, what is it?”
+
+Mary explained further.
+
+“Morris to go and see about it. Well, why shouldn’t he? It doesn’t take
+long to get home nowadays. Not but that we shall be sorry to lose you,
+my dear boy; or, at least, one of us will be sorry,” and he tried to
+wink in his old jovial fashion, and chuckled feebly.
+
+Mary saw and sighed; while the Colonel shook his head portentously.
+Nobody could play the part of Job’s comforter to greater perfection.
+
+The end of it was that, after a certain space of hesitation, Morris
+agreed to go. This “ménage” at Beaulieu oppressed him, and he hated the
+place. Besides, Mary, seeing that he was worried, almost insisted on
+his departure.
+
+“If I want you back I will send for you,” she said. “Go to your work,
+dear; you will be happier.”
+
+So he kissed her fondly and went—as he was fated to go.
+
+“Good-bye, my dear son,” said Mr. Porson—sometimes he called him his
+son, now. “I hope that I shall see you again soon, and if I don’t, you
+will be kind to my daughter Mary, won’t you? You understand, everybody
+else is dead—my wife is dead, my boy is dead, and soon I shall be dead.
+So naturally I think a good deal about her. You will be kind to her,
+won’t you? Good-bye, my son, and don’t trouble about money; there’s
+plenty.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE SUNK ROCKS AND THE SINGER
+
+
+Morris arrived home in safety, and speedily settled the question of the
+drainage mill to the satisfaction of all concerned. But he did not
+return to Beaulieu. To begin with, although the rural authorities
+ceased to trouble them, his father was most urgent that he should stay
+and supervise the putting up of the new farm buildings, and wrote to
+him nearly every day to this effect. It occurred to his son that under
+the circumstances he might have come to look after the buildings
+himself; also, that perhaps he found the villa at Beaulieu more
+comfortable without his presence; a conjecture in which he was
+perfectly correct.
+
+Upon the first point, also, letters from Mary soon enlightened him. It
+appeared that shortly after his departure Sir Jonah, in a violent fit
+of rage, brought on by drink and a remark of his wife’s that had she
+married Colonel Monk she “would have been a happy woman,” burst a small
+blood-vessel in his head, with the strange result that from a raging
+animal of a man he had been turned into an amiable and perfectly
+harmless imbecile. Under so trying a domestic blow, naturally, Mary
+explained, Colonel Monk felt it to be his duty to support and comfort
+his old friend to the best of his ability. “This,” added Mary, “he does
+for about three hours every day. I believe, indeed, that a place is
+always laid for him at meals, while poor Sir Jonah, for whom I feel
+quite sorry, although he was such a horrid man, sits in an armchair and
+smiles at him continually.”
+
+So Morris determined to take the advice which Mary gave him very
+plainly, and abandoned all idea of returning to Beaulieu, at any rate,
+on this side of Christmas. His plans settled, he went to work with a
+will, and was soon deeply absorbed in the manufacture of experimental
+receivers made from the new substance. So completely, indeed, did these
+possess his mind that, as Mary at last complained, his letters to her
+might with equal fitness have been addressed to an electrical journal,
+since from them even diagrams were not lacking.
+
+So things went on until the event occurred which was destined
+profoundly and mysteriously to affect the lives of Morris and his
+affianced wife. That event was the shipwreck of the steam tramp,
+Trondhjem, upon the well-known Sunk Rocks outside the Sands which run
+parallel to the coast at a distance of about five knots from the
+Monksland cliff. In this year of our story, about the middle of
+November, the weather set in very mild and misty. It was the third of
+these “roky” nights, and the sea-fog poured along the land like vapour
+from an opened jar of chemicals. Morris was experimenting at the forge
+in his workshop very late—or, rather early, for it was near to two
+o’clock in the morning—when of a sudden through the open window, rising
+from the quiet sea beneath, he heard the rattle of oars in rowlocks.
+Wondering what a boat could be doing so near inshore at a season when
+there was no night fishing, he went to the window to listen. Presently
+he caught the sound of voices shouting in a tongue with which he was
+unacquainted, followed by another sound, that of a boat being beached
+upon the shingle immediately below the Abbey. Now guessing that
+something unusual must have happened, Morris took his hat and coat,
+and, unlocking the Abbot’s door, lit a lantern, and descended the
+cement steps to the beach. Here he found himself in the midst of ten or
+twelve men, most of them tall and bearded, who were gathered about a
+ship’s boat which they had dragged up high and dry. One of these men,
+who from his uniform he judged to be the captain, approached and
+addressed him in a language that he did not understand, but imagined
+must be Danish or Norwegian.
+
+Morris shook his head to convey the blankness of his ignorance,
+whereupon other men addressed him, also in northern tongues. Then, as
+he still shook his head, a lad of about nineteen came forward and spoke
+in broken and barbarous French.
+
+“Naufragé la bas,” he said; “bateau à vapeur, naufragé sur les
+rochers—brouillard. Nous échappé.”
+
+“Tous?” asked Morris.
+
+The young man shrugged his shoulders as though he were doubtful on the
+point, then added, pointing to the boat:
+
+“Homme beaucoup blessé, pasteur anglais.”
+
+Morris went to the cutter, and, holding up the lantern, looked down, to
+find an oldish man with sharp features, dark eyes, and grizzled beard,
+lying under a tarpaulin in the bottom of the boat. He was clothed only
+in a dressing gown and a blood-stained nightshirt, groaning and
+semi-unconscious.
+
+“Jambe cassé, beaucoup mal cassé,” explained the French scholar.
+
+“Apportez-le vite après moi,” said Morris. This order having been
+translated by the youth, several stalwart sailors lifted up the injured
+man, and, placing the tarpaulin beneath him, took hold of it by the
+sides and corners. Then, following Morris, they bore him as gently as
+they could up the steps into the Abbey to a large bedroom upon the
+first floor, where they laid him upon the bed.
+
+Meanwhile, by the industrious ringing of bells as they went, Morris had
+succeeded in rousing a groom, a page-boy, and the cook. The first of
+these he sent off post haste for Dr. Charters. Next, having directed
+the cook to give the foreign sailormen some food and beer, he told the
+page-boy to conduct them to the Sailors’ Home, a place of refuge
+provided, as is common upon this stormy coast, for the accommodation of
+distressed and shipwrecked mariners. As he could extract nothing
+further, it seemed useless to detain them at the Abbey. Then, pending
+the arrival of the doctor, with the assistance of the old housekeeper,
+he set to work to examine the patient. This did not take long, for his
+injuries were obvious. The right thigh was broken and badly bruised,
+and he bled from a contusion upon the forehead. This wound upon his
+head seemed also to have affected his brain; at any rate, he was unable
+to speak coherently or to do more than mutter something about
+“shipwreck” and “steamer Trondhjem,” and to ask for water.
+
+Thinking that at least it could do no harm, Morris gave him a cup of
+soup, which had been hastily prepared. Just as the patient finished
+drinking it, which he did eagerly, the doctor arrived, and after a
+swift examination administered some anaesthetic, and got to work to set
+the broken limb.
+
+“It’s a bad smash—very bad,” he explained to Morris; “something must
+have fallen on him, I think. If it had been an inch or two higher, he’d
+have lost his leg, or his life, or both, as perhaps he will now. At the
+best it means a couple of months or so on his back. No, I think the cut
+on his head isn’t serious, although it has knocked him silly for a
+while.”
+
+At length the horrid work was done, and the doctor, who had to return
+to a confinement case in the village, departed. Before he went he told
+Morris that he hoped to be back by five o’clock. He promised also that
+before his return he would call in at the Sailor’s Home to see that the
+crew were comfortable, and discover what he could of the details of the
+catastrophe. Meanwhile for his part, Morris undertook to watch in the
+sick-room.
+
+For nearly three hours, while the drug retained its grip of him, the
+patient remained comatose. All this while Morris sat at his bedside
+wondering who he might be, and what curious circumstance could have
+brought him into the company of these rough Northmen sailors. To his
+profession he had a clue, although no sure one, for round his neck the
+man wore a silver cross suspended by a chain. This suggested that he
+might be a clergyman, and went far to confirm the broken talk of the
+French-speaking sailor. Clearly, also, he was a person of some breeding
+and position, the refinement of his face and the delicacy of his hands
+showed as much. While Morris was watching and wondering, suddenly the
+man awoke, and began to talk in a confused fashion.
+
+“Where am I?” he asked.
+
+“At Monksland,” answered Morris.
+
+“That’s all right, that’s where I should be, but the ship, the
+ship”—then a pause and a cry: “Stella, Stella!”
+
+Morris pricked his ears. “Where is Stella?” he asked.
+
+“On the rocks. She struck, then darkness, all darkness. Stella, come
+here, Stella!”
+
+A memory awoke in the mind of Morris, and he leant over the patient,
+who again had sunk into delirium.
+
+“Do you mean Stella Fregelius?” he asked.
+
+The man turned his flushed face and opened his dark eyes.
+
+“Of course, Stella Fregelius—who else? There is only one Stella,” and
+again he became incoherent.
+
+For a while Morris plied him with further questions; but as he could
+obtain no coherent answer, he gave him his medicine and left him quiet.
+Then for another half-hour or so he sat and watched, while a certain
+theory took shape in his mind. This gentleman must be the new rector.
+It seemed as though, probably accompanied by his daughter, he had taken
+passage in a Danish tramp boat bound for Northwold, which had touched
+at some Northumbrian port. Morris knew that the incoming clergyman had
+a daughter, for, now that he thought of it, he had heard Mr. Tomley
+mention the fact at the dinner-party on the night when he became
+engaged. Yes, and certainly she was named Stella. But there was no
+woman among those who had come to land, and he understood the injured
+man to suggest that his daughter had been left upon the steamer which
+was said to have gone ashore upon some rocks; or, perhaps, upon the
+Sunk Rocks themselves.
+
+Now, the only rocks within twenty miles of them were these famous Sunk
+Rocks, about six knots away. Even within his own lifetime four vessels
+had been lost there, either because they had missed, or mistaken, the
+lightship signal further out to sea, as sometimes happened in a fog
+such as prevailed this night, or through false reckonings. The fate of
+all these vessels had been identical; they had struck upon the reef,
+rebounded or slid off, and foundered in deep water. Probably in this
+case the same thing had happened. At least, the facts, so far as he
+knew them, pointed to that conclusion. Evidently the escape of the crew
+had been very hurried, for they had saved nothing. He judged also that
+the clergyman, Mr. Fregelius, having rushed on deck, had been injured
+by the fall of some spar or block consequent upon the violence of the
+impact of the vessel upon the reef, and in this hurt condition had been
+thrown into the boat by the sailors.
+
+Then where was the daughter Stella? Was she killed in the same fashion
+or drowned? Probably one or the other. But there was a third bare
+possibility, which did no credit to the crew, that she had been
+forgotten in the panic and hurry, and left behind on the sinking ship.
+
+At first Morris thought of rousing the captain of the lifeboat. On
+reflection, however, he abandoned this idea, for really what had he to
+go on beyond the scanty and disjointed ravings of a delirious man? Very
+possibly the girl Stella was not upon the ship at all. Probably, also,
+hours ago that vessel had vanished from the eyes of men for ever. To
+send out the lifeboat upon such a wild-goose chase would be to turn
+himself into a laughing-stock.
+
+Still something drew his thoughts to that hidden line of reef, and the
+ship which might still be hanging on it, and the woman who might still
+be living in the ship.
+
+It was a painful vision from which he could not free his mind.
+
+Then there came to him an idea. Why should he not go to the Sunk Rocks
+and look? There was a light breeze off land, and with the help of the
+page-boy, who was sitting up, as the tide was nearing its full he could
+manage to launch his small sailing-boat, which by good fortune was
+still berthed near the beach steps. It was a curious chance that this
+should be so, seeing that in most seasons she would have been by now
+removed to the shed a mile away, to be out of reach of possible damage
+from the furious winter gales. As it happened, however, the weather
+remaining so open, this had not been done. Further, the codlings having
+begun to run in unusual numbers, as is common upon this coast in late
+autumn, Morris that very morning had taken the boat out to fish for
+them, an amusement which he proposed to resume on the morrow in the
+hope of better sport. Therefore the boat had her sails on board, and
+was in every way ready for sea.
+
+Why should he not go? For one reason only that he could suggest. There
+was a certain amount of risk in sailing about the Sunk Rocks in a fog,
+even for a tiny craft like his, for here the currents were very sharp;
+also, in many places the points of the rocks were only just beneath the
+surface of the water. But he knew the dangerous places well enough if
+he could see them, as he ought to be able to do, for the dawn should
+break before he arrived. And, after all, what was a risk more or less
+in life? He would go. He felt impelled—strangely impelled—to go, though
+of course it was all nonsense, and probably he would be back by nine
+o’clock, having seen nothing at all.
+
+By this time the injured Mr. Fregelius had sunk into sleep or stupor,
+doubtless beneath the influence of the second draught which he had
+administered to him in obedience to the doctor’s orders. On his
+account, therefore, Morris had no anxiety, since the cook, a steady,
+middle-aged woman, could watch by him for the present.
+
+He called her and gave her instructions, bidding her tell the doctor
+when he came that he had gone to see if he could make out anything more
+about the wreck, and that he would be back soon. Then, ordering the
+page-boy, a stout lad, to accompany him, he descended the steps, and
+together, with some difficulty, they succeeded in launching the boat.
+Now for a moment Morris hesitated, wondering whether he should take the
+young man with him; but remembering that this journey was not without
+its dangers, finally he decided to go alone.
+
+“I am just going to have a sail round, Thomas, to look if I can make
+out anything about that ship.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” remarked Thomas, doubtfully. “But it is rather a queer time
+to hunt for her, and in this sea-haze too, especially round the Sunk
+Rocks. Shall I leave the lunch basket in the locker, sir, or take it up
+to the house?”
+
+“Leave it; it wasn’t touched to-day, and I might be glad of some
+breakfast,” Morris answered. Then, having hoisted his sail, he sat
+himself in the stern, with the tiller in one hand and the sheet in the
+other. Instantly the water began to lap gently against the bow, and in
+another minute he glided away from the sight of the doubting Thomas,
+vanishing like some sea-ghost into the haze and that chill darkness
+which precedes the dawn.
+
+It was very dark, and the mist was very damp, and the wind, what there
+was of it, very cold, especially as in his hurry he had forgotten to
+bring a thick ulster, and had nothing but a covert coat and a thin
+oil-skin to wear. Moreover, he could not see in the least where he was
+going, or do more than lay his course for the Sunk Rocks by means of
+the boat’s compass, which he consulted from time to time by the help of
+a bull’s-eye lantern.
+
+This went on for nearly an hour, by the end of which Morris began to
+wonder why he had started upon such a fool’s errand. Also, he was
+growing alarmed. He knew that by now he should be in the neighbourhood
+of the reef, and fancied, indeed, that he could hear the water lapping
+against its rocks. Accordingly, as this reef was ill company in the
+dark, Morris hauled down his sail, and in case he should have reached
+the shallows, threw out his little anchor, which was attached to six
+fathoms of chain. At first it swung loose, but four or five minutes
+later, the boat having been carried onward into fleeter water by the
+swift current that was one of the terrors of the Sunk Rocks, it touched
+bottom, dragged a little, and held fast.
+
+Morris gave a sigh of relief, for that blind journey among unknown
+dangers was neither safe nor pleasant. Now, at least, in this quiet
+weather he could lie where he was till light came, praying that a wind
+might not come first. Already the cold November dawn was breaking in
+the east; he was able to see the reflection of it upon the fog, and the
+surface of the water, black and oily-looking, became visible as it
+swept past the sides of his boat. Now, too, he was sure that the rocks
+must be close at hand, for he could hear the running tide distinctly as
+it washed against them and through the dense growth of seaweed that
+clung to their crests and ridges.
+
+Presently, too, he heard something else, which at first caused him to
+rub his eyes in the belief that he must have fallen asleep and dreamt;
+nothing less, indeed, than the sound of a woman’s voice. He began to
+reason with himself. What was there strange in this? He was told, or
+had inferred, that a woman had been left upon a ship. Doubtless this
+was she, upon some rock or raft, perhaps. Only then she would have been
+crying for help, and this voice was singing, and in a strange tongue,
+more sweetly than he had heard woman sing before.
+
+It was incredible, it was impossible. What woman would sing in a winter
+daybreak upon the Sunk Rocks—sing like the siren of old fable? Yet,
+there, quite close to him, over the quiet sea rose the song, strong,
+clear, and thrilling. Once it ceased, then began again in a deeper,
+more triumphant note, such as a Valkyrie might have sung as she led
+some Norn-doomed host to their last battle.
+
+Morris sat and listened with parted lips and eyes staring at the fleecy
+mist. He did not move or call out, because he was certain that he must
+be the victim of some hallucination, bred of fog, or of fatigue, or of
+cold; and, as it was very strange and moving, he had no desire to break
+in upon its charm.
+
+So there he sat while the triumphant, splendid song rolled and thrilled
+above him, and by degrees the grey light of morning grew to right and
+left. To right and left it grew, but, strangely enough, although he
+never noted it at the time, he and his boat lay steeped in shadow. Then
+of a sudden there was a change.
+
+A puff of wind from the north seemed to catch the fog and roll it up
+like a curtain, so that instantly all the sea became visible, broken
+here and there by round-headed, weed-draped rocks. Out of the east also
+poured a flood of light from the huge ball of the rising sun, and now
+it was that Morris learned why the gloom had been so thick about him,
+for his boat lay anchored full in the shadow of the lost ship
+Trondhjem. There, not thirty yards away, rose her great prow; the
+cutwater, which stood up almost clear, showing that she had forced
+herself on to a ridge of rock. There, too, poised at the extreme point
+of the sloping forecastle, and supporting herself with one hand by a
+wire rope that ran thence to the foremast, was the woman to whose
+siren-like song he had been listening.
+
+At that distance he could see little of her face; but the new-wakened
+wind blew the long dark hair about her head, while round her, falling
+almost to her naked feet, was wrapped a full red cloak. Had Morris
+wished to draw the picture of a Viking’s daughter guiding her father’s
+ship into the fray, there, down to the red cloak, bare feet, and flying
+tresses, stood its perfect model.
+
+The wild scene gripped his heart. Whoever saw the like of it? This girl
+who sang in the teeth of death, the desolate grey face of ocean, the
+brown and hungry rocks, the huge, abandoned ship, and over all the
+angry rays of a winter sunrise.
+
+Thus, out of the darkness of the winter night, out of the bewildering
+white mists of the morning, did this woman arise upon his sight, this
+strange new star begin to shine upon his life and direct his destiny.
+
+At the moment that he saw her she seemed to see him. At any rate, she
+ceased her ringing, defiant song, and, leaning over the netting rail,
+stared downwards.
+
+Morris began to haul at his anchor; but, though he was a strong man, at
+first he could not lift it. Just as he was thinking of slipping the
+cable, however, the little flukes came loose from the sand or weeds in
+which they were embedded, and with toil and trouble he got it shipped.
+Then he took a pair of sculls and rowed until he was nearly under the
+prow of the Trondhjem. It was he, too, who spoke first.
+
+“You must come to me,” he called.
+
+“Yes,” the woman answered, leaning over the rail; “I will come, but
+how? Shall I jump into the water?”
+
+“No,” he said, “it is too dangerous. You might strike against a rock or
+be taken by the current. The companion ladder seems to be down on the
+starboard side. Go aft to it, I will row round the ship and meet you
+there.”
+
+She nodded her head, and Morris started on his journey. It proved
+perilous. To begin with, there were rocks all about. Also, here the
+tide or the current, or both, ran with the speed of a mill-race, so
+that in places the sea bubbled and swirled like a boiling kettle.
+However skilled and strong he might be, it was hard for one man to deal
+with such difficulties and escape disaster. Still following the port
+side of the ship, since owing to the presence of certain rocks he dared
+not attempt the direct starboard passage, he came at last to her stern.
+Then he saw how imminent was the danger, for the poop of the vessel,
+which seemed to be of about a thousand tons burden, was awash and
+water-logged, but rolling and lifting beneath the pressure of the tide
+as it drew on to flood.
+
+To Morris, who had lived all his life by the sea, and understood such
+matters, it was plain that presently she would float, or be torn off
+the point of the rock on which she hung, broken-backed, and sink in the
+hundred-fathom-deep water which lay beyond the reef. There was no time
+to spare, and he laboured at his oars fiercely, till at length, partly
+by skill and partly by good fortune, he reached the companion ladder
+and fastened to it with a boat-hook.
+
+Now no woman was to be seen; she had vanished. Morris called and
+called, but could get no answer, while the great dead carcass of the
+ship rolled and laboured above, its towering mass of iron threatening
+to fall and crush him and his tiny craft to nothingness. He shouted and
+shouted again; then in despair lashed his boat to the companion, and
+ran up the ladder.
+
+Where could she have gone? He hurried forward along the heaving,
+jerking deck to the main hatchway. Here he hesitated for a moment;
+then, knowing that, if anywhere, she must be below, set his teeth and
+descended. The saloon was a foot deep in water, which washed from side
+to side with a heavy, sickening splash, and there, carrying a bag in
+one hand, holding up her garments with the other, and wading towards
+him from the dry upper part of the cabin, at last he found the lady
+whom he sought.
+
+“Be quick!” he shouted; “for God’s sake, be quick! The ship is coming
+off the rock.”
+
+She splashed towards him; now he had her by the hand; now they were on
+the deck, and now he was dragging her after him down the companion
+ladder. They reached the boat, and just as the ship gave a great roll
+towards them, Morris seized the oars and rowed like a madman.
+
+“Help me!” he gasped; “the current is against us.” And, sitting
+opposite to him, she placed her hands upon his hands, pressing forward
+as he pulled. Her slight strength made a difference, and the boat
+forged ahead—thirty, forty, seventy yards—till they reached a rock to
+which, exhausted, he grappled with a hook, bidding her hold on to the
+floating seaweed. Thus they rested for thirty seconds, perhaps, when
+she spoke for the first time:
+
+“Look!” she said.
+
+As she spoke the steamer slid and lifted off the reef. For a few
+moments she wallowed; then suddenly her stern settled, her prow rose
+slowly in the air till it stood up straight, fifty or sixty feet of it.
+Then, with a majestic, but hideous rush, down went the Trondhjem and
+vanished for ever.
+
+All round about her the sea boiled and foamed, while in the great
+hollow which she made on the face of the waters black lumps of wreckage
+appeared and disappeared.
+
+“Tight! hold tight!” he cried, “or she will suck us after her.”
+
+Suck she did, till the water poured over the gunwale. Then, the worst
+passed, and the boat rose again. The foam bubbles burst or floated away
+in little snowy heaps; the sea resumed its level, and, save for the
+floating debris, became as it had been for thousands of years before
+the lost Trondhjem rushed downward to its depths.
+
+Now, for the first time, knowing the immediate peril past, Morris
+looked at the face of his companion. It was a fine face, and beautiful
+in its way. Dark eyes, very large and perfect, whereof the pupils
+seemed to expand and contract in answer to every impulse of the
+thoughts within. Above the eyes long curving lashes and delicately
+pencilled, arched eyebrows, and above them again a forehead low and
+broad. The chin rounded; the lips full, rich, and sensitive; the
+complexion of a clear and beautiful pallor; the ears tiny; the hands
+delicate; the figure slim, of medium height, and alive with grace; the
+general effect most uncommon, and, without being lovely, breathing a
+curious power and personality.
+
+Such was the woman whom he had saved from death.
+
+“Oh, how splendid!” she said in her deep voice, and clasping her hands.
+“What a death! For ship or man, what a death! And after it the great
+calm sea, taking and ready to take for ever.”
+
+“Thank Heaven that it did not take you,” answered Morris wrathfully.
+
+“Why?” she answered.
+
+“Because you are still alive, who by now would have been dead.”
+
+“It seems that it was not fated this time,” she answered, adding: “The
+next it may be different.”
+
+“Yes,” he said reflectively; “the next it may be different, Miss
+Fregelius.”
+
+She started. “How do you know my name?” she asked.
+
+“From your father’s lips. He is ashore at my house. The sailors must
+have seen the light in my workshop and steered for it.”
+
+“My father?” she gasped. “He is still alive? But, oh, how is that
+possible? He would never have left me.”
+
+“Yes, he lives, but with a broken thigh and his head cut open. He was
+brought ashore senseless, so you need not be ashamed of him. Those
+sailors are the cowards.”
+
+She sighed, as though in deep relief. “I am very glad. I had made up my
+mind that he must be dead, for of course I knew that he would never
+have left me otherwise. It did not occur to me that he might be carried
+away senseless. Is he—” and she paused, then added: “tell me the
+worst—quick.”
+
+“No; the doctor thinks in no danger at present; only a break of the
+thigh and a scalp wound. Of course, he could not help himself, for he
+can have known no more than a corpse of what was passing,” he went on.
+“It is those sailors who are to blame—for leaving you on the ship, I
+mean.”
+
+She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.
+
+“The sailors! From such rough men one does not expect much. They had
+little time, and thought of themselves, not of a passenger, whom they
+had scarcely seen. Thank God they did not leave my father behind also.”
+
+“You do not thank God for yourself,” said Morris curiously, as he
+prepared to hoist the sail, for his mind harked back to his old
+wonderment.
+
+“Yes, I do, but it was not His will that I should die last night. I
+have told you that it was not fated,” she answered.
+
+“Quite so. That is evident now; but were I in your case this really
+remarkable escape would make me wonder what is fated.”
+
+“Yes, it does a little; but not too much, for you see I shall learn in
+time. You might as well wonder how it happened that you arrived to save
+me, and to what end.”
+
+Morris hesitated, for this was a new view of the case, before he
+answered.
+
+“That your life should be saved, I suppose.”
+
+“And why should it happen that your boat should come to save me?”
+
+“I don’t know; chance, I suppose.”
+
+“Neither do I; but I don’t believe in chance. Everything has its
+meaning and purpose.”
+
+“Only one so seldom finds it out. Life is too short, I suppose,”
+replied Morris.
+
+By now the sail was up, the boat was drawing ahead, and he was seated
+at her side holding the tiller.
+
+“Why did you go down into the saloon, Miss Fregelius?” he asked
+presently.
+
+She glanced at herself, and now, for the first time, he noticed that
+she wore a dress beneath her red cloak, and that there were slippers on
+her feet, which had been bare.
+
+“I could not come into the boat as I was,” she explained, dropping her
+eyes. “The costume which is good enough to be drowned in is not fitted
+for company. My cabin was well forward, and I guessed that by wading I
+could reach it. Also, I had some trinkets and one or two books I did
+not wish to lose,” and she nodded at the hand-bag which she had thrown
+into the boat.
+
+Morris smiled. “It is very nice of you to pay so much respect to
+appearances,” he said; “but I suppose you forgot that the vessel might
+come off the rocks at any moment and crush me, who was waiting.”
+
+“Oh, no,” she answered; “I thought of it. I have always been accustomed
+to the sea, and know about such things.”
+
+“And still you went for your dress and your trinkets?”
+
+“Yes, because I was certain that it wouldn’t happen and that no harm
+would come to either of us by waiting a few minutes.”
+
+“Indeed, and who told you that?”
+
+“I don’t know, but from the moment that I saw you in the boat I was
+certain that the danger was done with—at least, the immediate danger,”
+she added.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+MISS FREGELIUS
+
+
+While Miss Fregelius was speaking, Morris had been staring at the sail,
+which, after drawing for a time in an indifferent fashion, had begun to
+flap aimlessly.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked his companion. “Has the wind veered again?”
+
+He nodded. “Dead from the west, now, and rising fast. I hope that your
+spirit of prophecy still speaks smooth things, for, upon my word, I
+believe we are both of us in a worse mess than ever.”
+
+“Can’t we row ashore? It is only a few miles, is it?”
+
+“We can try, but I am afraid we are in for a regular tearer. We get
+them sometimes on this coast after a spell of calm weather.”
+
+“Please give me an oar,” she said. “I am used to rowing—of a sort.”
+
+So he let down the sail, and they began to row. For ten minutes or so
+they struggled against the ever-rising gale. Then Morris called to her
+to ship oars.
+
+“It is no use exhausting ourselves, Miss Fregelius,” he said, “for now
+the tide is on the ebb, and dead against us, as well as the wind.”
+
+“What are you going to do?” she asked.
+
+Morris glanced back to where a mile behind them the sea was beginning
+to foam ominously over the Sunk Rocks, here and there throwing up
+isolated jets of spray, like those caused by the blowing of a whale.
+
+“I am going to try to clear them,” he said, “and then run before it.
+Perhaps we might make the Far Lightship five and twenty miles away.
+Help me to pull up the sail. So, that’s enough; she can’t stand too
+much. Now hold the sheet, and if I bid you, let go that instant. I’ll
+steer.”
+
+A few seconds later the boat’s head had come round, and she was rushing
+through the water at great speed, parallel with the line of the Sunk
+Rocks, but being momentarily driven nearer to them. The girl, Stella
+Fregelius, stared at the farthest point of foam which marked the end of
+the reef.
+
+“You must hold her up if you want to clear it,” she said quietly.
+
+“I can’t do any more in this wind,” he answered. “You seem to know
+about boats; you will understand.”
+
+She nodded, and on they rushed, the ever-freshening gale on their beam.
+
+“This boat sails well,” said Stella, as a little water trickled over
+the gunwale.
+
+Morris made no answer, his eyes were fixed upon the point of rock; only
+bidding his companion hold the tiller, he did something to the sail.
+Now they were not more than five hundred yards away.
+
+“It will be a very near thing,” she said.
+
+“Very,” he answered, “and I don’t want to be officious, but I suggest
+that you might do well to say your prayers.”
+
+She looked at him, and bowed her head for a minute or so. Then suddenly
+she lifted it again and stared at the terror ahead of them with wide,
+unflinching eyes.
+
+On sped the boat while more and more did tide and gale turn her prow
+into the reef. At the end of it a large, humpbacked rock showed now and
+again through the surf, like the fin of a black whale. That was the
+rock which they must clear if they would live. Morris took the
+boat-hook and laid it by his side. They were very near now. They would
+clear it; no, the wash sucked them in like a magnet.
+
+“Good-bye,” said Morris instinctively, but Stella answered nothing.
+
+The wave that lifted them broke upon the rock in a cloud of spray
+wherein for some few instants their boat seemed to vanish. They were
+against it; the boat touched, and Stella felt a long ribbon of seaweed
+cut her like a whip across the face. Kneeling down, Morris thrust madly
+with the boat-hook, and thus for an instant—just one—held her off. His
+arms doubled beneath the strain, and then came the back-wash.
+
+Oh, heaven! it had swept them clear. The rock was behind, the sail
+drew, and swiftly they fled away from the death that had seemed
+certain.
+
+Stella sighed aloud, while Morris wiped the water from his face.
+
+“Are we clear?” she asked presently.
+
+“Of the Sunk Rocks? Yes, we are round them. But the North Sea is in
+front of us, and what looks like the worst gale that has blown this
+autumn is rising behind.”
+
+“This is a good sea-boat, and on the open water I think perhaps that we
+ought to weather it,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully, as Morris
+stowed the sail, for in that wind they wanted no canvas.
+
+“I wish we had something to eat,” she added presently; “I am so
+hungry.”
+
+“By good luck I can help you there,” he answered. “Yesterday I was out
+fishing and took lunch for myself and the boatman; but the fish
+wouldn’t bite, so we came back without eating it, and it is still in
+the locker. Shift a little, please, I will get the basket.”
+
+She obeyed, and there was the food sure enough, plenty of it. A thick
+packet of sandwiches, and two boiled eggs, a loaf, and a large lump of
+cheese for the boatman, a flask of whiskey, a bottle of beer, another
+of water, and two of soda. They ate up the sandwiches and the eggs,
+Morris drinking the beer and Stella the soda water, for whiskey as yet
+she would not touch.
+
+“Now,” she said, “we are still provisioned for twenty-four hours with
+the bread and cheese, the water and the soda which is left.”
+
+“Yes,” he answered, “if we don’t sink or die of cold we shall not
+starve. I never thought that sandwiches were so good before;” and he
+looked hungrily at the loaf.
+
+“You had better put it away; you may want it later,” she suggested. And
+he put it away.
+
+“Tell me, if you don’t mind,” he asked, for the food and the lightening
+of the strain upon his nerves had made him conversational, “what is
+that song which you sang upon the ship, and why did you sing it?”
+
+She coloured a little, and smiled, a sweet smile that seemed to begin
+in her eyes.
+
+“It is an old Norse chant which my mother taught me; she was a Dane, as
+my father is also by descent. It has come down in her family for many,
+many generations, and the legend is that the women of her race always
+sang it or repeated it while the men were fighting, and, if they had
+the strength, in the hour of their own death. I believe that is true,
+for she died whispering it herself; yes, it grew fainter and fainter
+until it ceased with her breath. So, when I thought that my hour had
+come, I sang it also, for the first time, for I tried to be brave, and
+wished to go as my forefathers went. It is a foolish old custom, but I
+like old customs. I am ashamed that you should have heard it. I thought
+myself alone. That is all.”
+
+“You are a very strange young lady,” said Morris, staring at her.
+
+“Strange?” she answered, laughing. “Not at all; only I wanted to show
+those scores of dead people that their traditions and spirit still
+lived on in me, their poor modern child. Think how glad they must have
+been to hear the old chant as they swept by in the wind just now,
+waiting to give me welcome.”
+
+Morris stared still harder. Was this beautiful girl mad? He knew
+something of the old Norse literature and myths. A fantastic vision
+rose up in his mind of her forebears, scores and hundreds of them
+gathered at some ghostly Walhalla feast, listening to the familiar
+paean as it poured from her fearless heart, and waiting to rise and
+greet her, the last newcomer of their blood, with “_Skoll_, daughter,
+_skoll!_”
+
+She watched him as though she read his thought.
+
+“You see, they would have been pleased; it is only natural,” she said;
+“and I have a great respect for the opinion of my ancestors.”
+
+“Then you are sure they still exist in some shape or form, and are
+conscious?”
+
+She laughed again. “Of course I am sure. The world of spirits, as I
+think, is the real world. The rest is a nightmare; at least, it seems
+like a nightmare, because we don’t know the beginning or the end of the
+dream.”
+
+“The old Egyptians thought something like that,” said Morris
+reflectively. “They only lived to die.”
+
+“But we,” she answered, “should only die to live, and that is why I try
+not to be afraid. I daresay, however, I mean the same as they did, only
+you do not seem to have put their thought quite clearly.”
+
+“You are right; I meant that for them death was but a door.”
+
+“That is better, I think,” she said. “That was their thought, and that
+is my thought; and,” she added, searching his face, “perhaps your
+thought also.”
+
+“Yes,” he answered, “though somehow you concentrate it; I have never
+seen things, or, rather, this thing, quite so sharply.”
+
+“Because you have never been in a position to see them; they have not
+been brought home to you. Or your mind may have wanted an interpreter.
+Perhaps I am that interpreter—for the moment.” Then she added: “Were
+you afraid just now? Don’t tell me if you had rather not, only I should
+like to compare sensations. I was—more than on the ship. I admit it.”
+
+“No,” he answered; “I suppose that I was too excited.”
+
+“What were you thinking of when we bumped against the rocks?” she asked
+again.
+
+“Well, now that you mention it,” he replied, rubbing his forehead with
+his left hand like a man newly awakened, “I could think of nothing but
+that song of yours, which you sang upon the vessel. Everything grew
+dark for an instant, and through the darkness I remembered the song.”
+
+“Are you married?” she asked, as though speaking to herself.
+
+“No; I am engaged.”
+
+“Then, why——” and she stopped, confused.
+
+Morris guessed what had been in her mind, and of a sudden felt terribly
+ashamed.
+
+“Because of that witch-song of yours,” he answered, with a flash of
+anger, “which made me forget everything.”
+
+She smiled and answered. “It wasn’t the song; it was the excitement and
+struggle which blotted out the rest. One does not really think at all
+at such moments, or so I believe. I know that I didn’t, not just when
+we bumped against the rock. But it is odd that you should believe that
+you remembered my song, for, according to tradition, that is just what
+the chant should do, and what it always did. Its ancient name means
+‘The Over-Lord,’ because those who sang it and those who heard it were
+said to remember nothing else, and to fear nothing, not even Death our
+lord. It is the welcome that they give to death.”
+
+“What egregious nonsense!” he blurted out.
+
+“I daresay; but then, why do you understand my nonsense so well? Tell
+me, if you will, of what blood are you?”
+
+“Danish, I believe, in the beginning.”
+
+“Oh,” she said, laughing, “no doubt that accounts for it. Some
+forefather of yours may have heard the song of the Over-Lord, perhaps
+from the lips of some foremother of mine. So, of course, you remembered
+and understood.”
+
+“Such a thing will scarcely bear argument, will it?”
+
+“Of course it won’t. I have only been joking all the time, though I do
+half believe in this old song, as my ancestors did before me. I mean,
+that as I thought I had to die, I liked to keep up the ancient custom
+and sing it first. It encouraged my spirits. But where are we going?”
+
+“To where our spirits will need no more encouragement,” he answered
+grimly; “or, at least, I fear it may be so. Miss Fregelius, to drop
+jests, it is blowing very hard off land; the sea is getting up, and
+this is but a small boat. We are doing pretty well now, but sooner or
+later, I fear, and I think it right to tell you, that a wave may poop
+us and then——”
+
+“There will be an end,” said Stella. “Is there anything to be done?
+Have you any plan?”
+
+“None, except to make the Far Lightship, as I told you; but even if we
+succeed, I don’t know whether it will be possible to get aboard of her
+unless the sea moderates.”
+
+“Won’t the lifeboat come out to look for you?” she asked.
+
+He shook his head. “How could they find one tiny sail upon the great
+ocean? Moreover, it will be supposed either that I have foundered or
+made some port along the coast. There is the worst of it. I fear that
+it may be telegraphed everywhere,” and he sighed deeply.
+
+“Why?” she asked. “Are you a very important person that they should
+bother to do that? You see,” she added in explanation, “I don’t even
+know your name or where you come from, only that you told me you worked
+in a shop which,” she added reflectively, looking at him, “seems odd.”
+
+Even then and there Morris could not help a smile; really this young
+lady was very original.
+
+“No,” he answered, “I am not at all important, and I work in a shop
+because I am an inventor—or try to be—in the electrical line. My name
+is Morris Monk, and I am the son of Colonel Monk, and live at the Abbey
+House, Monksland. Now you know all about me.”
+
+“Oh! of course I do, Mr. Monk,” she said in some confusion, “how
+foolish of me not to guess. You are my father’s principal new
+parishioner, of whom Mr. Tomley gave us a full description.”
+
+“Did he indeed? What did he say?” he asked idly.
+
+“Do you really want to know, Mr. Monk?”
+
+“Yes, if it is amusing. Just now I shall be grateful for anything that
+can divert my thoughts.”
+
+“And you will promise not to bear malice against Mr. Tomley?”
+
+“Certainly, especially as he has gone away, and I don’t expect to see
+him any more.”
+
+“Well, he described your father, Colonel Monk, as a handsome and
+distinguished elderly gentleman of very good birth, and manners, too,
+when he chose, who intensely disliked growing old. He said that he
+thought of himself more than of anybody else in the world, and next of
+the welfare of his family, and that if we wished to get on with him we
+must be careful not to offend his dignity, as then he would be
+quarrelsome.”
+
+“That’s true enough, or most of it,” answered Morris, “a good picture
+of my father’s weak side. And what was his definition of myself?”
+
+“He said that you were in his opinion one of the most interesting
+people that he had ever met; that you were a dreamer and a mystic; that
+you cared for few of the things which usually attract young men, and
+that you were in practice almost a misogynist. He added that, although
+heretofore you had not succeeded, he thought that you possessed real
+genius in certain lines, but that you had not your father’s ‘courtly
+air,’ that was his term. Of course, I am only repeating, so you must
+not be angry.”
+
+“Well,” said Morris, “I asked for candour and I have got it. Without
+admitting the accuracy of his definitions, I must say that I never
+thought that pompous old Tomley had so much observation.” Then he added
+quickly, to change the subject, since the possible discussion of his
+own attributes, physical or mental, alarmed him, “Miss Fregelius, you
+have not told me how you came to be left aboard the ship.”
+
+“Really, Mr. Monk, I don’t know. I heard a confused noise in my sleep,
+and when I woke up it was to find myself alone, and the saloon half
+full of water. I suppose that after the vessel struck, the sailors,
+thinking that she was going down, got off at once, taking my father,
+who had been injured and made insensible in some way, with them as he
+happened to be on deck, leaving me to my chance. You know, we were the
+only passengers.”
+
+“Were you not frightened when you found yourself all alone like that?”
+
+“Yes, at first, dreadfully; then I was so distressed about my father,
+whom I thought dead, and angry with them for deserting me, that I
+forgot to be frightened, and afterwards—well, I was too proud. Besides,
+we must die alone, every one of us, so we may as well get accustomed to
+the idea.”
+
+Morris shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
+
+“You think that I need not talk so much about our mortal end. Well,
+perhaps under all the circumstances, we may as well keep our thoughts
+on this world—while it lasts. You have not told me, Mr. Monk, how you
+came to be sailing about alone this morning. Did you come out to look
+at the wreck?”
+
+“Do you think that I am mad?” he asked, not without indignation.
+“Should I make a journey at night, in a November fog, with every chance
+of a gale coming up, to the Sunk Rocks in this cockle-shell, and alone,
+merely to look at the place where, as I understood rather vaguely, a
+foreign tramp steamer had gone down?”
+
+“Well, it does seem rather odd. But why else did you come? Were you
+fishing? Men will risk a great deal for fishing, I know, I have seen
+that in Norway.”
+
+“Why do you pretend not to understand, Miss Fregelius? You must know
+perfectly well that I came to look for you.”
+
+“Indeed,” she answered candidly, “I knew nothing of the sort. How did
+you find out that I was still on the ship, or that the ship was still
+above water? And even if you knew both, why should you risk your life
+just on the faint chance of rescuing a girl whom you never saw?”
+
+“I can’t quite tell you; but your father in his delirium muttered some
+words which made me suspect the truth, and a sailor who could speak a
+little bad French said that the Trondhjem was lost upon some rocks.
+Well, these are the only rocks about here; and as the whole story was
+too vague to carry to the lifeboat people I thought that I would come
+to look. So you see it is perfectly simple.”
+
+“So simple, Mr. Monk, that I do not understand it in the least. You
+must have known the risks, for you asked no one to share them—the risks
+that are so near and real;” and, shivering visibly, she looked at the
+grey combers seething past them, and the wind-torn horizon beyond.
+“Yet, you—you who have ties, faced all this on the chance of saving a
+stranger.”
+
+“Please, please,” broke in Morris. “At any rate, you see, it was a
+happy inspiration.”
+
+“Yes, for me, perhaps—but for you! Oh, if it should end in your being
+taken away from the world before your time, from the world and the lady
+who—what then?”
+
+Morris winced; then he said: “God’s will be done. But although we may
+be in danger, we are not dead yet; not by a long way.”
+
+“She would hate me whose evil fortune it was to draw you to death, and
+in life or out of it I should never forgive myself—never! never!” and
+she covered her eyes with her cold, wet hand and sighed.
+
+“Why should you grieve over what you cannot help?” asked Morris gently.
+
+“I cannot quite explain to you,” she answered; “but the thought of it
+seems so sad.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+DAWN AND THE LAND
+
+
+A day, a whole day, spent upon that sullen, sunless waste of water,
+with the great waves bearing them onwards in one eternal, monotonous
+procession, till at length they grew dizzy with looking at them, and
+the ceaseless gale piping in their ears. Long ago they had lost sight
+of land; even the tall church towers built by our ancestors as beacons
+on this stormy coast had vanished utterly. Twice they sighted ships
+scudding along under their few rags of canvas, and once a steamer
+passed, the smoke from her funnels blowing out like long black pennons.
+But all of these were too far off, or too much engaged with their own
+affairs to see the little craft tossing hither and thither like a
+used-up herring basket upon the endless area of ocean.
+
+Fortunately, from his youth Morris had been accustomed to the
+management of boats in all sorts of weather, the occupation of sailing
+alone upon the waters being one well suited to his solitary and
+reflective disposition. Thus it came about that they survived, when
+others, less skilful, might have drowned. Sometimes they ran before the
+seas; sometimes they got up a few square feet of sail, and, taking
+advantage of a veer in the wind, tried to tack, and once, when it blew
+its hardest, fearing lest they should be pooped, for over an hour they
+contrived to keep head on to the waves.
+
+Thus, diversified by some necessary bailing, passed the short November
+day, long enough for them, till once more the darkness began to gather.
+They had still some food and drink left; indeed, had it not been for
+these they would have perished. Most happily, also, with the sun the
+wind dropped, although for hours the sea remained dangerously high. Now
+wet and cold were their enemies, worse than any that they had been
+called upon to face. Long ago the driving spray had soaked them to the
+skin, and there upon the sea the winter night was very chill.
+
+While the wind, fortunately for them, by comparison a warm one, still
+blew from the west, and the sea remained tempestuous, they found some
+shelter by wrapping themselves in a corner of the sail. Towards
+midnight, however, it got round to the northeast, enough of it to
+moderate the sea considerably, and to enable them to put the boat about
+and go before it with a closely reefed sail. Now, indeed, they were
+bitterly cold, and longed even for the shelter of the wet canvas. Still
+Morris felt, and Stella was of the same mind, that before utter
+exhaustion overtook them their best chance for life lay in trying to
+make the shore, which was, they knew not how far away.
+
+There, then, for hours they cowered in the stern of the boat, huddled
+together to protect themselves as best they might from the weather, and
+plunging forward beneath their little stretch of sail. Sleep they could
+not, for that icy breath bit into their marrow, and of this Morris was
+glad, since he did not dare relax his watch for an instant. So
+sometimes they sat silent, and sometimes by fits and starts they
+talked, their lips close to each other’s face, as though they were
+whispering to one another.
+
+To while away the weary time, Morris told his companion about his
+invention, the aerophone. Then she in turn told him something of her
+previous life—Stella was now a woman of four and twenty. It seemed that
+her mother had died when she was fourteen at the rectory in
+Northumberland, where she was born. After that, with short intervals,
+she had spent five years in Denmark, whither her father came to visit
+her every summer. Most of this time she passed at a school in
+Copenhagen, going for her holidays to stay with her grandmother, who
+was the widow of a small landowner of noble family, and lived in an
+ancient, dilapidated house in some remote village. At length the
+grandmother died, leaving to Stella the trifle she possessed, after
+which, her education being completed, she returned to Northumberland to
+keep house for her father. Here, too, it would seem that her life was
+very lonely, for the place was but an unvisited coast village, and they
+were not rich enough to mix much with the few county families who lived
+anywhere within reach.
+
+“Have you no brothers or sisters?” asked Morris.
+
+Even then, numb as was her flesh with cold, he felt her wince at the
+question.
+
+“No, no,” she answered, “none now—at least, none here. I have—I mean I
+had—a sister, my twin, but she died when we were seventeen. This was
+the most dreadful thing that ever happened to me, the thing which made
+me what I am.”
+
+“I don’t quite understand. What are you, then?”
+
+“Oh, something very unsatisfactory, I am afraid, quite different from
+other people. What Mr. Tomley said _you_ were, Mr. Monk, a mystic and a
+dreamer of dreams; a lover of the dead; one who dwells in the past,
+and—in the future.”
+
+Morris did not pursue the subject; even under their strange
+circumstances, favourable as they were to intimacy and confidences, it
+seemed impertinent to him to pry into the mysteries of his companion’s
+life. Only he asked, at hazard almost:
+
+“How did you spend your time up there in Northumberland?”
+
+“In drawing a little, in collecting eggs, moths, and flowers a great
+deal; in practising with my violin playing and singing; and during the
+long winters in making translations in my spare time of Norse sagas,
+which no one will publish.”
+
+“I should like to read them; I am fond of the sagas,” he said, and
+after this, under pressure of their physical misery, the conversation
+died away.
+
+Hour succeeded to hour, and the weather moderated so much that now they
+were in little danger of being swamped. This, indeed, was fortunate,
+since in the event of a squall or other emergency, in their numbed
+condition it was doubtful whether they could have found enough strength
+to do what might be necessary to save themselves. They drank what
+remained of the whiskey, which put life into their veins for a while,
+but soon its effects passed off, leaving them, if possible, more frozen
+than before.
+
+“What is the time?” asked Stella, after a long silence.
+
+“It should be daybreak in about two hours,” he said, in a voice that
+attempted cheerfulness.
+
+Then a squall of sleet burst upon them, and after this new misery a
+torpor overcame Stella; at least, her shiverings grew less violent, and
+her head sank upon his shoulder. Morris put one arm round her waist to
+save her from slipping into the water at the bottom of the boat, making
+shift to steer with the other. Thus, for a while they ploughed
+forward—whither he knew not, across the inky sea, for there was no
+moon, and the stars were hidden, driven on slowly by the biting breath
+of the winter wind.
+
+Presently she awoke, lifted her head, and spoke, saying:
+
+“We can’t last much longer in this cold and wet. You are not afraid,
+are you?”
+
+“No, not exactly afraid, only sorry; it is hard to go with so much to
+be done, and—to leave behind.”
+
+“You shouldn’t think like that,” she answered, “for what we leave must
+follow. She will suffer, but soon she will be with you again, where
+everything is understood. Only you ought to have died with her, and not
+with me, a stranger.”
+
+“Fate settles these things,” he muttered, “and if it comes to that,
+maybe God will give her strength. But the dawn is near, and by it we
+may see land.”
+
+“Yes, yes,”—now her voice had sunk to a whisper,—“the dawn is always
+near, and by it we shall see land.”
+
+Then again Stella’s head sank upon his shoulder, and she slept heavily;
+nor, although he knew that such slumbers are dangerous, did he think it
+worth while to disturb her.
+
+The invisible seas hissed past; the sharp wind bit his bones, and over
+him, too, that fatal slumber began to creep. But, although he seldom
+exercised it, Morris was a man of strong will, and while any strength
+was left he refused to give way. Would this dreadful darkness never
+end? For the fiftieth time he glanced back over his shoulder, and now,
+he was sure of it, the east grew ashen. He waited awhile, for the
+November dawn is slow in breaking, then looked again. Heaven be
+thanked! the cold wind had driven away the clouds, and there, upon the
+edge of the horizon, peeped up the fiery circle of the sun, throwing
+long rays of sickly yellow across the grey, troubled surface of the
+waters. In front of him lay a dense bank of fog, which, from its
+character, as Morris knew well, must emanate from the reeking face of
+earth. They were near shore, it could not be doubted; still, he did not
+wake his companion. Perhaps he might be in error, and sleep, even a
+death-sleep, is better than the cheatings of disappointed hope.
+
+What was that dim object in front of him? Surely it must be the ruin a
+mile or so to the north of Monksland, that was known as the Death
+Church? Once a village stood here, but the sea had taken most of it;
+indeed, all that remained to-day was this old, deserted fane, which,
+having been built upon a breast of rising ground, still remained,
+awaiting its destruction by the slow sap of the advancing ocean. Even
+now, at times of very high tide, the sea closed in behind, cutting the
+fabric off from the mainland, where it looked like a forsaken
+lighthouse rather than the tower and chancel of a church. But there,
+not much more than a mile away, yes, there it was, and Morris felt
+proud to think how straight he had steered homewards through that
+stormy darkness.
+
+The sea was still wild and high, but he was familiar with every inch of
+the coast, and knew well that there was a spot to the south of the Dead
+Church, just where the last rood of graveyard met the sand, upon which
+he could beach the boat safely even in worse weather. For this nook
+Morris headed with a new energy; the fires of life and hope burnt up in
+him, giving him back his strength and judgment.
+
+At last they were opposite to the place, and, watching his chance, he
+put the helm down and ran in upon the crest of a wave, till the boat
+grounded in the soft sand, and began to wallow there like a dying
+thing. Fearing lest the back-wash should suck them off into the surf
+again, he rolled himself into the water, for jump he could not; indeed,
+it was as much as he could do to stand. With a last effort of his
+strength he seized Stella in his arms and struggled with her to the
+sandy shore, where he sank down exhausted. Then she woke. “Oh, I
+dreamed, I dreamed!” she said, staring round her wildly.
+
+“What?” he asked.
+
+“That it was all over; and afterwards, that I——” and she broke off
+suddenly, adding: “But it was all a dream, for we are safe on shore,
+are we not?”
+
+“Yes, thank Heaven!” said Morris. “Sit still, and I will make the boat
+secure. She has served us a good turn, and I do not want to lose her
+after all.”
+
+She nodded, and wading into the water, with numbed hands he managed to
+lift the little anchor and carry it ashore in his arms.
+
+“There,” he said, “the tide is ebbing, and she’ll hold fast enough
+until I can send to fetch her; or, if not, it can’t be helped. Come on,
+Miss Fregelius, before you grow too stiff to walk;” and, bending down,
+he helped her to her feet.
+
+Their road ran past the nave of the church, which was ruined and
+unroofed. At some time during the last two generations, however,
+although the parishioners saw that it was useless to go to the cost of
+repairing the nave, they had bricked in the chancel, and to within the
+last twenty years continued to use it as a place of worship. Indeed,
+the old oak door taken from the porch still swung on rusty hinges in
+the partition wall of red brick. Stella looked up and saw it.
+
+“I want to look in there,” she said.
+
+“Wouldn’t it do another time?” The moment did not strike Morris as
+appropriate for the examination of ruined churches.
+
+“No; if you don’t mind I should like to look now, while I remember,
+just for one instant.”
+
+So he shrugged his shoulders, and they limped forward up the roofless
+nave and through the door. She stared at the plain stone altar, at the
+eastern window, of which part was filled with ancient coloured glass
+and part with cheap glazed panes; at the oak choir benches, mouldy and
+broken; at the few wall-slabs and decaying monuments, and at the roof
+still strong and massive.
+
+“I dreamed of a place very like this,” she said, nodding her head. “I
+thought that I was standing in such a spot in a fearful gale, and that
+the sea got under the foundations and washed the dead out of their
+graves.”
+
+“Really, Miss Fregelius,” he said, with some irritation, for the
+surroundings of the scene and his companion’s talk were uncanny, “do
+you think this an occasion to explore ruins and relate nightmares?”
+Then he added, “I beg your pardon, but I think that the cold and wet
+have affected your nerves; for my part, I have none left.”
+
+“Perhaps; at least forgive me, I did so want to look,” she answered
+humbly as, arm-in-arm, for she needed support, they passed from the
+altar to the door.
+
+A grotesque imagination entered the numbed mind of Morris. Their slow
+and miserable march turned itself to a vision of a bridal procession
+from the altar. Wet, dishevelled, half-frozen, they two were the
+bride-groom and the bride, and the bride was a seer of visions, and the
+bridegroom was a dreamer of dreams. Yes, and they came up together out
+of the bitter sea and the darkness, and they journeyed together to a
+vault of the dead——
+
+Thank Heaven! they were out of the place, and above was the sun
+shining, and, to the right and left, the grey ocean and the purple
+plough-lands, cold-looking, suggesting dangers and labour, but
+wholesome all of them, and good to the eye of man. Only why did this
+woman see visions, and why did he dream dreams? And what was the
+meaning of their strange meeting upon the sea? And what——
+
+“Where are we going?” asked Stella after a while and very faintly.
+
+“Home; to the Abbey, I mean, where your father lies. Now it is not much
+more than a mile away.”
+
+She sighed; her strength was failing her.
+
+“You had better try to walk, it will warm you,” he urged, and she
+struggled on.
+
+It was a miserable journey, but they reached the house at length,
+passing first through a street of the village in which no one seemed to
+be awake. A wretched-looking couple, they stumbled up the steps into
+the porch, where Morris rang the bell, for the door was locked. The
+time seemed an age, but at last steps were heard, the door was
+unbarred, and there appeared a vision of the lad Thomas, yawning, and
+clad in a nightshirt and a pair of trousers, with braces attached which
+dangled to the floor.
+
+“Oh, Lord!” he said when he saw them, and his jaw dropped.
+
+“Get out of the way, you young idiot,” said Morris, “and call the
+cook.”
+
+It was half-past seven in the evening, that is, dinner time, and Morris
+stood in the study waiting for Stella, who had announced through the
+housemaid that she was coming down.
+
+After telling the servants to send for the doctor and attend to his
+companion, who had insisted upon being led straight to her father’s
+room, Morris’s first act that morning on reaching home was to take a
+bath as hot as he could bear. Then he drank several cups of coffee with
+brandy in it, and as the office would soon be open, wrote a telegram to
+Mary, which ran thus:
+
+“If you hear that I have been drowned, don’t believe it. Have arrived
+safe home after a night at sea.”
+
+This done, for he guessed that all sorts of rumours would be abroad, he
+inquired after Mr. Fregelius and Stella. Having learned that they were
+both going on well and sent off his telegram, Morris went to bed and
+slept for ten hours.
+
+Morris looked round the comfortable sitting-room with its recessed
+Tudor windows, its tall bookcases and open hearth, where burned a
+bright fire of old ship’s timbers supported on steel dogs, and thought
+to himself that he was fortunate to be there. Then the door opened, he
+heard the housemaid’s voice say, “This way please, Miss,” and Stella
+came in. She wore a plain white dress that seemed to fit her very well,
+though where she got it from he never discovered, and her luxuriant
+hair was twisted up into a simple knot. On the bosom of her dress was
+fixed a spray of brilliant ampelopsis leaves; it was her only ornament,
+but none could have been more striking. For the rest, although she
+limped and still looked dark and weary about the eyes, to all
+appearances she was not much the worse for their terrible adventure.
+
+Morris glanced at her. Could this dignified and lovely young lady be
+that red-cloaked, loose-haired Valkyrie whom he had seen singing at
+daybreak upon the prow of the sinking ship, or the piteous bedraggled
+person whom he had supported from the altar in the Dead Church?
+
+She guessed his thought—from the beginning Stella had this curious
+power of discovering his mind—and said with a smile:
+
+“Fine feathers make fine birds, and even Cleopatra would have looked
+dreadful after a November night in an open boat.”
+
+“Have you recovered?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, Mr. Monk; that is, I don’t think I am going to have inflammation
+of the lungs or anything horrid of the sort. The remedies and that walk
+stopped it. But my feet are peeling from being soaked so long in salt
+water, and my hands are not much better. See,” and she held them
+towards him.
+
+Then dinner was announced, and for the second time that day they walked
+arm-in-arm.
+
+“It seems a little strange, doesn’t it?” suggested Morris as he
+surveyed the great refectory in which they two, seated at the central
+table, looked so lone and small.
+
+“Yes,” she answered; “but so it should, anything quite usual would have
+been out of place to-day.”
+
+Then he asked her how her father was going on, and heard what he had
+already learned from the doctor, that he was doing as well as could be
+expected.
+
+“By the way, Mr. Monk,” she added; “if you can spare a few minutes
+after dinner, and are not too tired, he would so much like to see you.”
+
+“Of course,” answered Morris a little nervously, for he scented a
+display of fervent gratitude.
+
+After this they dropped into desultory conversation, curiously
+different from the intimate talk which passed between them in the boat.
+Then they had been in danger, and at times in the very shadow of Death;
+a condition that favours confidences since those who stand beneath his
+wings no longer care to hide their hearts. The reserves which so
+largely direct our lives are lifted, their necessity is past, and in
+the face of the last act of Nature, Nature asserts herself. Who cares
+to continue to play a part when the audience has dispersed, the curtain
+is falling, and the pay-box has put up its shutters? Now, very
+unexpectedly these two were on the stage again, and each assumed the
+allotted role.
+
+Stella admired the room; whereon Morris set to work to explain its
+characteristics, to find, to his astonishment, that Miss Fregelius had
+more knowledge of architecture than he could boast. He pointed out
+certain details, alleging them to be Elizabethan work, to which age
+they had been credited for generations, whereon she suggested and,
+indeed, proved, that some of them dated from the earlier years of Henry
+VIII., and that some were late Jacobean. While Morris was wondering how
+he could combat this revolutionary opinion, the servant brought in a
+telegram. It was from Mary, at Beaulieu, and ran:
+
+“Had not heard that you were drowned, but am deeply thankful that you
+are saved. Why did you pass a night at sea in this weather? Is it a
+riddle? Grieved to say my father not so well. Best love, and please
+keep on shore.
+
+
+MARY.”
+
+
+At first Morris was angry with this rather flippant message; then he
+laughed. As he had already discovered, in fact, his anxieties had been
+quite groundless. The page-boy, Thomas, it appeared, when questioned,
+had given the inquirers to understand that his master had gone out to
+fish, taking his breakfast with him. Later, on his non-appearance, he
+amended this statement, suggesting out of the depths of a fertile
+imagination, that he had sailed down to Northwold, where he meant to
+pass the night. Therefore, although the cook, a far-seeing woman who
+knew her Thomas and hated him, had experienced pangs of doubt, nobody
+else troubled the least, and even the small community of Monksland
+remained profoundly undisturbed as to the fate of one of its principal
+inhabitants.
+
+So little is an unsympathetic world concerned in our greatest and most
+particular adventures! A birth, a marriage, an inquest, a scandal—these
+move it superficially, for the rest it has no enthusiasm to spare. This
+cold neglect of events which had seemed to him so important reacted
+upon Morris, who, now that he had got over his chill and fatigue, saw
+them in their proper proportions. A little adventure in an open boat at
+sea which had ended without any mishap, was not remarkable, and might
+even be made to appear ridiculous. So the less said about it,
+especially to Mary, whose wit he feared, the better.
+
+When dinner was finished Stella left the room, passing down its
+shadowed recesses with a peculiar grace of which even her limp could
+not rob her. Ten minutes later, while Morris sat sipping a glass of
+claret, the nurse came down to tell him that Mr. Fregelius would like
+to see him if he were disengaged. Reflecting that he might as well get
+the interview over, Morris followed her at once to the Abbot’s chamber,
+where the sick man lay.
+
+Except for a single lamp near the bed, the place was unlighted, but by
+the fire, its glow falling on her white-draped form and pale, uncommon
+face, sat Stella. As he entered she rose, and, coming forward,
+accompanied him to the bedside, saying, in an earnest voice:
+
+“Father, here is our host, Mr. Monk, the gentleman who saved my life at
+the risk of his own.”
+
+The patient raised his bandaged head and stretched out a long thin
+hand; he could stir nothing else, for his right thigh was in splints
+beneath a coffer-like erection designed to keep the pressure of the
+blankets from his injured limb.
+
+“Sir, I thank you,” he said in a dry, staccato voice; “all the humanity
+that is lacking from the hearts of those rude wretches, the crew of the
+Trondhjem, must have found its home in you.”
+
+Morris looked at the dark, quiet eyes that seemed to express much which
+the thin and impassive face refused to reveal; at the grey pointed
+beard and the yellowish skin of the outstretched arm. Here before him,
+he felt, lay a man whose personality it was not easy to define, one who
+might be foolish, or might be able, but of whose character the leading
+note was reticence, inherent or acquired. Then he took the hand, and
+said simply:
+
+“Pray, say no more about it. I acted on an impulse and some wandering
+words of yours, with results for which I could not hope. There is
+nothing to thank me for.”
+
+“Then, sir, I thank God, who inspired you with that impulse, and may
+every blessing reward your bravery.”
+
+Stella looked up as though to speak, but changed her mind and returned
+to her seat by the fire.
+
+“What is there to reward?” said Morris impatiently; “that your daughter
+is still alive is my reward. How are you to-night, Mr. Fregelius?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+A MORNING SERVICE
+
+
+Mr. Fregelius replied he was as well as could be expected; that the
+doctor said no complications were likely to ensue, but that here upon
+this very bed he must lie for at least two months. “That,” he added,
+“is a sad thing to have to say to a man into whose house you have
+drifted like a log into a pool of the rocks.”
+
+“It is not my house, but my father’s, who is at present in France,”
+answered Morris. “But I can only say on his behalf that both you and
+your daughter are most welcome until you are well enough to move to the
+Rectory.”
+
+“Why should I not go there at once?” interrupted Stella. “I could come
+each day and see my father.”
+
+“No, no, certainly not,” said Morris. “How could you live alone in that
+great, empty house?”
+
+“I am not afraid of being alone,” she answered, smiling; “but let it be
+as you like, Mr. Monk—at any rate, until you grow tired of us, and
+change your mind.”
+
+Then Mr. Fregelius told Morris what he had not yet heard—that when it
+became known that they had deserted Stella, leaving her to drown in the
+sinking ship, the attentions of the inhabitants of Monksland to the
+cowardly foreign sailors became so marked that their consul at
+Northwold had thought it wise to get them out of the place as quickly
+as possible. While this story was in progress Stella left the room to
+speak to the nurse who had been engaged to look after her father at
+night.
+
+Afterwards, at the request of Mr. Fregelius, Morris told the tale of
+his daughter’s rescue. In the course of it he mentioned how he found
+her standing on the deck of the sinking ship and singing a Norse song,
+which she had informed him was an ancient death-dirge.
+
+The old clergyman turned his head and sighed.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked Morris.
+
+“Nothing, Mr. Monk; only that song is unlucky in my family, and I hoped
+that she had forgotten it.”
+
+Morris looked at him blankly.
+
+“You don’t understand—how should you? But, Mr. Monk, there are strange
+things and strange people in this world, and I think that my daughter
+Stella is one of the strangest of them. Fey like the rest—only a fey
+Norse woman would sing in such a moment.”
+
+Again Morris looked at him.
+
+“Oh, it is an old northern term, and means foreseeing, and foredoomed.
+To my knowledge her grandmother, her mother, and her sister, all three
+of them, sang or repeated that song when in some imminent danger to
+their lives, and all three of them were dead within the year. The
+coincidence is unpleasant.”
+
+“Surely,” said Morris, with a smile, “you who are a clergyman, can
+scarcely believe in such superstition?”
+
+“No, I am not superstitious, and I don’t believe in it; but the thing
+recalls unhappy memories. They have been death-lovers, all of them. I
+never heard of a case of one of that family who showed the slightest
+fear at the approach of death; and some have greeted it with
+eagerness.”
+
+“Well,” said Morris, “would not that mean only that their spiritual
+sight is a little clearer than ours, and their faith a little stronger?
+Theoretically, we should all of us wish to die.”
+
+“Quite so, yet we are human, and don’t. But she is safe, thanks to you,
+who but for you would now be gone. My head is still weak from that
+blow—you must pay no attention to me. I think that I hear Stella
+coming; you will say nothing to her—about that song, I mean—will you?
+We never talk of it in my family.”
+
+When, still stiff and sore from his adventure in the open boat, Morris
+went to bed, it was clear to his mind after careful consideration that
+fortune had made him the host of an exceedingly strange couple. Of Mr.
+Fregelius he was soon able to form an estimate distinct enough,
+although, for aught he knew, it might be erroneous. The clergyman
+struck him as a person of some abilities who had been doomed to much
+disappointment and suffered from many sorrows. Doubtless his talents
+had not proved to be of a nature to advance him in the world. Probably,
+indeed—and here Morris’s hazard was correct—he was a scholar and a
+bookworm without individuality, to whom fate had assigned minor
+positions in a profession, which, however sincere his faith, he was
+scarcely fitted to adorn.
+
+The work of a clergyman in a country parish if it is to succeed, should
+be essentially practical, and this man was not practical. Clearly,
+thought Morris, he was one of those who beat their wings against the
+bars with the common result; it was the wings that suffered, the bars
+only grew a trifle brighter. Then it seemed that he had lost a wife to
+whom he was attached, and the child who remained to him, although he
+loved her and clung to her, he did not altogether understand. So it
+came about, perhaps, that he had fallen under the curses of loneliness
+and continual apprehension; and in this shadow where he was doomed to
+walk, flourished forebodings and regrets, drawing their strength from
+his starved nature like fungi from a tree outgrown and fallen in the
+forest.
+
+Mr. Fregelius, so thought Morris, was timid and reticent, because he
+dared not discover his heart, that had been so sorely trampled by Fate
+and Fortune. Yet he had a heart which, if he could find a confessor
+whom he could trust, he longed to ease in confidence. For the rest, the
+man’s physical frame, not too robust at any time, was shattered, and
+with it his nerve—sudden shipwreck, painful accident, the fierce
+alternatives of hope and fear; then at last a delirium of joy at the
+recovery of one whom he thought dead, had done their work with him; and
+in this broken state some ancient, secret superstition became dominant,
+and, strive as he would to suppress it, even in the presence of a
+stranger, had burst from his lips in hints of unsubstantial folly.
+
+Such was the father, or such he appeared to Morris, but of the daughter
+what could be said? Without doubt she was a woman of strange and
+impressive power. At this very moment her sweet voice, touched with
+that continual note of pleading, still echoed in his brain. And the
+dark, quiet eyes that now slept, and now shone large, as her thoughts
+fled through them, like some mysterious sky at night in which the
+summer lightning pulses intermittently! Who might forget those eyes
+that once had seen them? Already he wished to be rid of their haunting
+and could not. Then her beauty—how unusual it was, yet how rich and
+satisfying to the eye and sense; in some ways almost Eastern
+notwithstanding her Norse blood!
+
+Often Morris had read or heard of the bewildering power of women, which
+for his part hitherto he had been inclined to attribute to shallow and
+very common causes, such as underlie all animate nature. Yet that of
+Stella—for undoubtedly she had power—suggested another interpretation
+to his mind. Or was it, after all, nothing but a variant, one of the
+Protean shapes of the ancient, life-compelling mystery? And her strange
+chant, the song of which her father made light, but feared so much; her
+quick insight into the workings of his own thought; her courage in the
+face of danger and sharp physical miseries; her charm, her mastery.
+What was he to make of them? Lastly, why did he think so much about
+her? It was not his habit where strangers were concerned. And why had
+she awakened in his somewhat solitary and secluded mind a sympathy so
+unusual that it seemed to him that he had known her for years and not
+for hours?
+
+Pondering these things and the fact that perhaps within the coming
+weeks he would find out their meaning, Morris went to sleep. When he
+awoke next morning his mood had changed. Somewhat vaguely he remembered
+his perturbations of the previous night indeed, but now they only moved
+him to a smile. Their reasons were so obvious. Such exaggerated
+estimates and thoughts follow strange adventures—and in all its details
+this adventure was very strange—as naturally as nightmares follow
+indigestion.
+
+Presently Thomas came to call him, and brought up his letters, among
+them one from Mary containing nothing in particular, for, of course, it
+had been despatched before her telegram, but written in her usual
+humorous style, which made him laugh aloud.
+
+There was a postscript to the letter screwed into the unoccupied space
+between the date line and the “Dearest Morris” at its commencement. It
+ran:
+
+“How would you like to spend our honeymoon? In a yacht in the
+Mediterranean? I think that would do. There is nothing like solitude in
+a wretched little boat to promote mutual understanding. If your
+devotion could stand the strain of a dishevelled and seasick spouse,
+our matrimonial future has no terrors for your loving
+
+
+MARY.”
+
+
+As Morris read he ceased to laugh. “Yes,” he thought to himself,
+“‘solitude in a wretched little boat’ does promote mutual
+understanding. I am not certain that it does not promote it too much.”
+Then, with an access of irritation, “Bother the people! I wish I could
+be rid of them; the whole thing seems likely to become a worry.”
+
+Next he took up a letter from his father, which, when perused, did not
+entertain him in the least. There was nothing about Lady Rawlins in it,
+of whom he longed to hear, or thought that he did; nothing about that
+entrancing personality, the bibulous and violent Sir Jonah, now so meek
+and lamblike, but plenty, whole pages indeed, as to details connected
+with the estate. Also it contained a goodly sprinkling of sarcasms and
+grumblings at his, Morris’s, bad management of various little matters
+which the Colonel considered important. Most of all, however, was his
+parent indignant at his neglect to furnish him with details
+sufficiently ample of the progress of the new buildings. Lastly, he
+desired, by return of post, a verbatim report of the quarrel that, as
+he was informed, had occurred on the school board when a prominent
+Roman Catholic threatened to throw an inkstand at a dissenting minister
+who, _coram populo_, called him the son of “a Babylonian woman.”
+
+By the time that Morris had finished this epistle, and two others which
+accompanied it, he was in no mood for further reflections of an
+unpractical or dreamy nature. Who can wonder when it is stated that
+they contained, respectively, a summary demand for the amount of a
+considerable bill which he imagined he had paid, and a request that he
+would read a paper before a “Science Institute” upon the possibilities
+of aerial telephones, made by a very unpleasing lady whom he had once
+met at a lawn-tennis party? Indeed it would not be too much to say that
+if anyone had given him the opportunity he would have welcomed a chance
+to quarrel, especially with the lady of the local Institute. Thus,
+cured of all moral distempers, and every tendency to speculate on
+feminine charms, hidden or overt, did he descend to the Sabbath
+breakfast.
+
+That morning Morris accompanied Stella to church, where the services
+were still being performed by a stop-gap left by Mr. Tomley. Here,
+again, Stella was a surprise to him, for now her demeanour, and at a
+little distance her appearance also, were just such as mark
+ninety-eight out of every hundred clergyman’s daughters in the country.
+So quiet and reserved was she that anyone meeting her that morning
+might have imagined that she was hurrying from the accustomed
+Bible-class to sit among her pupils in the church. This impression
+indeed was, as it were, certificated by an old-fashioned silk fichu
+that she had been obliged to borrow, which in bygone years had been
+worn by Morris’s mother.
+
+Once in church, however, matters changed. To begin with, finding it
+warm, Stella threw off the fichu, greatly to the gain of her personal
+appearance. Next, it became evident that the beauties of the ancient
+building appealed to her, which was not wonderful; for these old,
+seaside, eastern counties churches, relics of long past wealth and
+piety, are some of them among the most beautiful in the world. Then
+came the “Venite,” of which here and there she sang a line or so, just
+one or two rich notes like those that a thrush utters before he bursts
+into full song. Rare as they might be, however, they caused those about
+her in the church to look at the strange singer wonderingly.
+
+After this, in the absence of his father, Morris read the lessons, and
+although, being blessed with a good voice, this was a duty which he
+performed creditably enough, that day he went through it with a certain
+sense of nervousness. Why he was nervous at first he did not guess;
+till, chancing to glance up, he became aware that Miss Fregelius was
+looking at him out of her half-closed eyes. What is more, she was
+listening critically, and with much intenseness, whereupon, instantly,
+he made a mistake and put a false accent on a name.
+
+In due course, the lessons done with, they reached the first hymn,
+which was one that scarcely seemed to please his companion; at any
+rate, she shut the book and would not sing. In the case of the second
+hymn, however, matters were different. This time she did not even open
+the book. It was evident that she knew the words, perhaps among the
+most beautiful in the whole collection, by heart. The reader will
+probably be acquainted with them. They begin:
+
+“And now, O Father, mindful of the love
+That bought us, once for all, on Calvary’s tree.”
+
+
+At first Stella sang quite low, as though she wished to repress her
+powers. Now, as it happened, at Monksland the choir was feeble, but
+inoffensive; whereas the organ was a good, if a worn and neglected
+instrument, suited to the great but sparsely peopled church, and the
+organist, a man who had music in his soul. Low as she was singing, he
+caught the sound of Stella’s voice, and knew at once that before him
+was a woman who in a supreme degree possessed the divinest gift,
+perhaps, with which Nature can crown her sex, the power and gift of
+song. Forgetting his wretched choir, he began to play to her. She
+seemed to note the invitation, and at once answered to it.
+
+“Look, Father, look on His anointed face,”
+
+
+swelled from her throat in deep contralto notes, rich as those the
+organ echoed.
+
+But the full glory of the thing, that surpassing music which set
+Monksland talking for a week, was not reached till she came to the
+third verse. Perhaps the pure passion and abounding humanity of its
+spirit moved her. Perhaps by this time she was the thrall of her own
+song. Perhaps she had caught the look of wonder and admiration on the
+face of Morris, and was determined to show him that she had other music
+at command besides that of pagan death-chants. At least, she sang up
+and out, till her notes dominated those of the choir, which seemed to
+be but an accompaniment to them; till they beat against the ancient
+roof and down the depth of the long nave, to be echoed back as though
+from the golden trumpets of the angels that stood above the tower
+screen; till even the village children ceased from whispers and playing
+to listen open-mouthed.
+
+“And then for those, our dearest and best,
+By this prevailing Presence we appeal;
+O! fold them closer to Thy mercy’s breast,
+O! do Thine utmost, for their souls’ true weal;
+From tainting mischief keep them white and clear,
+And crown Thy gifts with strength to persevere.”
+
+
+It was as her voice lingered upon the deep tones of these last words
+that suddenly Stella seemed to become aware that practically she was
+singing a solo; that at any rate no one else in the congregation was
+contributing a note. Then she was vexed, or perhaps a panic took her;
+at least, not another word of that hymn passed her lips. In vain the
+organist paused and looked round indignantly; the little boys, the
+clerk, and the stout coach-builder were left to finish it by
+themselves, with results that by contrast were painful.
+
+When Stella came out of church, redraped in the antique and unbecoming
+fichu, she found herself the object of considerable attention. Indeed,
+upon one pretext and another nearly all the congregation seemed to be
+lingering about the porch and pathway to stare at the new parson’s
+shipwrecked daughter when she appeared. Among them was Miss Layard, and
+with her the delicate brother. They were staying to lunch with the
+Stop-gap’s meek little wife. Indeed, this self-satisfied and somewhat
+acrimonious lady, Miss Layard, engaged Morris in conversation, and
+pointedly asked him to introduce her to Miss Fregelius.
+
+“We are to be neighbours, you know,” she explained, “for we live at the
+Hall in the next parish, not more than a mile away.”
+
+“Indeed,” answered Stella, who did not seem much impressed.
+
+“My brother and I hope to call upon Mr. Fregelius and yourself as soon
+as possible, but I thought I would not wait for that to have the
+pleasure of making your acquaintance.”
+
+“You are very kind indeed,” said Stella simply. “At present, I am
+afraid, it is not much use calling upon my father, as he is in bed with
+a broken thigh; also, we are not at the Rectory. Until he can be moved
+we are only guests at the Abbey,” and she looked at Morris, who added
+rather grumpily, by way of explanation:
+
+“Of course, Miss Layard, you have heard about the wreck of the
+Trondhjem, and how those foreign sailors saw the light in my workshop
+and brought Mr. Fregelius to the Abbey.”
+
+“Oh, yes, Mr. Monk, and how they left Miss Fregelius behind, and you
+went to fetch her, and all sorts of strange things happened to you. We
+think it quite wonderful and romantic. I am writing to dear Miss Porson
+to tell her about it, because I am sure that you are too modest to sing
+your own praises.”
+
+Morris grew angry. At the best of times he disliked Miss Layard. Now he
+began to detest her, and to long for the presence of Mary, who
+understood how to deal with that not too well-bred young person.
+
+“You really needn’t have troubled,” he answered. “I have already
+written.”
+
+“Then my epistle will prove a useful commentary. If I were engaged to a
+modern hero I am sure I could not hear too much about him, and,” fixing
+her eyes upon the black silk fichu, “the heroine of the adventure.”
+
+Meanwhile, Stella was being engaged by the brother, who surveyed her
+with pale, admiring eyes which did not confine their attentions to the
+fichu.
+
+“Monk is always an awfully lucky fellow,” he said. “Just fancy his
+getting the chance of doing all that, and finding you waiting on the
+ship at the end of it,” he added, with desperate and emphatic
+gallantry. “There’s to be a whole column about it in the ‘Northwold
+Times’ to-morrow. I wish the thing had come my way, that’s all.”
+
+“Unless you understand how to manage a boat in a heavy sea, and the
+winds and tides of this coast thoroughly, I don’t think that you should
+wish that, Mr. Layard,” said Stella.
+
+“Why not?” he asked sharply. As a matter of fact the little man was a
+miserable sailor and suspected her of poking fun at him.
+
+“Because you would have been drowned, Mr. Layard, and lying at the
+bottom of the North Sea among the dogfish and conger-eels this morning
+instead of sitting comfortably in church.”
+
+Mr. Layard started and stared at her. Evidently this lady’s imagination
+was as vivid as it was suggestive.
+
+“I say, Miss Fregelius,” he said, “you don’t put things very
+pleasantly.”
+
+“No, I am afraid not, but then drowning isn’t pleasant. I have been
+near it very lately, and I thought a great deal about those
+conger-eels. And sudden death isn’t pleasant, and perhaps—unless you
+are very, very good, as I daresay you are—what comes after it may not
+be quite pleasant. All of which has to be thought of before one goes to
+sea in an open boat in winter, on the remotest chance of saving a
+stranger’s life—hasn’t it?”
+
+Somehow Mr. Layard felt distinctly smaller.
+
+“I daresay one wouldn’t mind it at a pinch,” he muttered; “Monk isn’t
+the only plucky fellow in the world.”
+
+“I am sure you would not, Mr. Layard,” replied Stella in a gentler
+voice, “still these things must be considered upon such occasions and a
+good many others.”
+
+“A brave man doesn’t think, he acts,” persisted Mr. Layard.
+
+“No,” replied Stella, “a foolish man doesn’t think, a brave man thinks
+and sees, and still acts—at least, that is how it strikes me, although
+perhaps I have no right to an opinion. But Mr. Monk is going on, so I
+must say good-morning.”
+
+“Are many of the ladies about here so inquisitive, and the young
+gentlemen so?”—“decided” she was going to say, but changed the word to
+“kind”—asked Stella of Morris as they walked homeward.
+
+“Ladies!” snapped Morris. “Miss Layard isn’t a lady, and never will be;
+she has neither birth nor breeding, only good looks of a sort and
+money. I should like,” he added, viciously—“I should like to shut her
+into her own coal mine.”
+
+Stella laughed, which was a rare thing with her—usually she only
+smiled—as she answered:
+
+“I had no idea you were so vindictive, Mr. Monk. And what would you
+like to do with Mr. Layard?”
+
+“Oh! I—never thought much about him. He is an ignorant, uneducated
+little fellow, but worth two of his sister, all the same. After all,
+he’s got a heart. I have known him do kind things, but she has nothing
+but a temper.”
+
+Meanwhile, at the luncheon table of the Stop-gap the new and mysterious
+arrival, Miss Fregelius, was the subject of fierce debate.
+
+“Pretty! I don’t call her pretty,” said Miss Layard; “she has fine
+eyes, that is all, and they do not look quite right. What an
+extraordinary garment she had on, too; it might have come out of Noah’s
+Ark.”
+
+“I fancy,” suggested the hostess, a mild little woman, “that it came
+out of the wardrobe of the late Mrs. Monk. You know, Miss Fregelius
+lost all her things in that ship.”
+
+“Then if I were she I should have stopped at home until I got some new
+ones,” snapped Miss Layard.
+
+“Perhaps everybody doesn’t think so much about clothes as you do,
+Eliza,” suggested her brother Stephen, seeing an opportunity which he
+was loth to lose. Eliza, in the privacy of domestic life, was not a
+person to be assailed with a light heart, but in company, when to some
+extent she must keep her temper under control, more might be dared.
+
+She shifted her chair a little, with her a familiar sign of war, and
+while searching for a repartee which would be sufficiently crushing,
+cast on Stephen a glance that might have turned wine into vinegar.
+
+Somewhat tremulously, for unless the fire could be damped before it got
+full hold, she knew what they might expect, the little hostess broke in
+with—
+
+“What a beautiful singing voice she has, hasn’t she?”
+
+“Who?” asked Eliza, pretending not to understand.
+
+“Why, Miss Fregelius, of course.”
+
+“Oh, well, that is a matter of opinion.”
+
+“Hang it all, Eliza!” said her brother, “there can’t be two opinions
+about it, she sings like an angel.”
+
+“Do you think so, Stephen? I should have said she sings like an opera
+dancer.”
+
+“Always understood that their gifts lay in their legs and not in their
+throats. But perhaps you mean a prima donna,” remarked Stephen
+reflectively.
+
+“No, I don’t. Prima donnas are not in the habit of screeching at the
+top of their voices, and then stopping suddenly to make an effect and
+attract attention.”
+
+“Certainly she has attracted my attention, and I only wish I could hear
+such screeching every day; it would be a great change.” It may be
+explained that the Layards were musical, and that each detested the
+music of the other.
+
+“Really, Stephen,” rejoined Eliza, with sarcasm as awkward as it was
+meant to be crushing, “I shall have to tell Jane Rose that she is
+dethroned, poor dear—beaten out of the field by a hymn-tune, a pair of
+brown eyes, and—a black silk fichu.”
+
+This was a venomous stab, since for a distance of ten miles round
+everyone with ears to hear knew that Stephen’s admiration of Miss Rose
+had not ended prosperously for Stephen. The poisoned knife sank deep,
+and its smart drove the little pale-eyed man to fury.
+
+“You can tell her what you like, Eliza,” he replied, for his
+self-control was utterly gone; “but it won’t be much use, for she’ll
+know what you mean. She’ll know that you are jealous of Miss Fregelius
+because she’s so good looking; just as you are jealous of her, and of
+Mary Porson, and of anybody else who dares to be pretty and,” with
+crushing meaning, “to look at Morris Monk.”
+
+Eliza gasped, then said in a tragic whisper, “Stephen, you insult me.
+Oh! if only we were at home, I would tell you——”
+
+“I have no doubt you would—you often do; but I’m not going home at
+present. I am going to the Northwold hotel.”
+
+“Really,” broke in their hostess, almost wringing her hands, “this is
+Sunday, Mr. Layard; remember this is Sunday.”
+
+“I am not likely to forget it,” replied the maddened Stephen; but over
+the rest of this edifying scene we will drop a veil.
+
+Thus did the advent of Stella bring with it surprises, rumours, and
+family dissensions. What else it brought remains to be told.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+MR. LAYARD’S WOOING
+
+
+The days went by with an uneventful swiftness at the Abbey, and after
+he had once accustomed himself to the strangeness of what was, in
+effect, solitude in the house with an unmarried guest of the other sex,
+it may be admitted, very pleasantly to Morris. At first that rather
+remarkable young lady, Stella, had alarmed him somewhat, so that he
+convinced himself that the duties of this novel hospitality would prove
+irksome. As a matter of fact, however, in forty-eight hours the
+irksomeness was all gone, to be replaced within twice that period by an
+atmosphere of complete understanding, which was comforting to his
+fearful soul.
+
+The young lady was never in the way. Now that she had procured some
+suitable clothes the young lady was distinctly good looking; she was
+remarkably intelligent and well-read; she sang, as Stephen Layard had
+said, “like an angel”; she took a most enlightened interest in
+aerophones and their possibilities; she proved a very useful assistant
+in various experiments; and made one or two valuable suggestions. While
+Mary and the rest of them were away the place would really be dull
+without her, and somehow he could not be as sorry as he ought when Dr.
+Charters told him that old Mr. Fregelius’s bones were uniting with
+exceeding slowness.
+
+Such were the conclusions which one by one took shape in the mind of
+that ill-starred man, Morris Monk. As yet, however, let the student of
+his history understand, they were not tinged with the slightest
+“arrière-pensée.” He did not guess even that such relations as already
+existed between Stella and himself might lead to grievous trouble; that
+at least they were scarcely wise in the case of a man engaged.
+
+All he felt, all he knew, was that he had found a charming companion, a
+woman whose thought, if deeper, or at any rate different to his and not
+altogether to be followed, was in tune with his. He could not always
+catch her meaning, and yet that unrealised meaning would appeal to him.
+Himself a very spiritual man, and a humble seeker after truth, his
+nature did intuitive reverence to one who appeared to be still more
+spiritual, who, as he conjectured, at times at any rate, had discovered
+some portion of the truth. He believed it, although she had never told
+him so. Indeed that semi-mystical side of Stella, whereof at first she
+had shown him glimpses, seemed to be quite in abeyance; she dreamed no
+more dreams, she saw no more visions, or if she did she kept them to
+herself. Yet to him this woman seemed to be in touch with that unseen
+which he found it so difficult to weigh and appreciate. Instinctively
+he felt that her best thoughts, her most noble and permanent desires,
+were there and not here.
+
+As he had said to her in the boat, the old Egyptians lived to die. In
+life a clay hut was for them a sufficient lodging; in death they sought
+a costly, sculptured tomb, hewn from the living rock. With them these
+things were symbolical, since that great people believed, with a
+wonderful certainty, that the true life lay beyond. They believed, too,
+that on the earth they did but linger in its gateway, passing their
+time with such joy as they could summon, baring their heads undismayed
+to the rain of sorrow, because they knew that very soon they would be
+crowned with eternal joys, whereof each of these sorrows was but an
+earthly root.
+
+Stella Fregelius reminded Morris of these old Egyptians. Indeed, had he
+wished to carry the comparison from her spiritual to her physical
+attributes it still might have been considered apt, for in face she was
+somewhat Eastern. Let the reader examine the portrait bust of the great
+Queen Taia, clothed with its mysterious smile, which adorns the museum
+in Cairo, and, given fair instead of dusky skin, with certain other
+minor differences, he will behold no mean likeness to Stella Fregelius.
+However this may be, for if Morris saw the resemblance there were
+others who could not agree with him; doubtless although not an Eastern,
+ancient or modern, she was tinged with the fatalism of the East,
+mingled with a certain contempt of death inherited perhaps from her
+northern ancestors, and an active, pervading spirituality that was all
+her own. Yet her manners were not gloomy, nor her air tragic, for he
+found her an excellent companion, fond of children and flowers, and at
+times merry in her own fashion. But this gaiety of hers always reminded
+Morris of that which is said to have prevailed in the days of the
+Terror among those destined to the guillotine. Never for one hour did
+she seem to forget the end. “‘Vanity of vanities,’ saith the Preacher”;
+and that lesson was her watchword.
+
+One evening they were walking together upon the cliff. In the west the
+sun had sunk, leaving a pale, lemon-coloured glow upon the sky. Then
+far away over the quiet sea, showing bright and large in that frosty
+air, sprang out a single star. Stella halted in her walk, and looked
+first at the sunset heaven, next at the solemn sea, and last at that
+bright, particular star set like a diadem of power upon the brow of
+advancing night. Morris, watching her, saw the blood mantle to her pale
+face, while the dark eyes grew large and luminous, proud, too, and full
+of secret strength. At length his curiosity got the better of him.
+
+“What are you thinking of?” he asked.
+
+“Do you wish me to tell you?”
+
+“Yes, if you will.”
+
+“You will laugh at me.”
+
+“Yes—as I laugh at that sky, and sea, and star.”
+
+“Well, then, I was thinking of the old, eternal difference between the
+present and the future.”
+
+“You mean between life and death?” queried Morris, and she nodded,
+answering:
+
+“Between life and death, and how little people see or think of it. They
+just live and forget that beneath them lie their fathers’ bones. They
+forget that in some few days—perhaps more, perhaps less—other unknown
+creatures will be standing above _their_ forgotten bones, as blind, as
+self-seeking, as puffed up with the pride of the brief moment, and
+filled with the despair of their failure, the glory of their success,
+as they are to-night.”
+
+“Perhaps,” suggested Morris, “they say that while they are in the world
+it is well to be of the world; that when they belong to the next it
+will be time to consider it. I am not sure that they are not right. I
+have heard that view,” he added, remembering a certain conversation
+with Mary.
+
+“Oh, don’t think that!” she answered, almost imploringly; “for it is
+not true, really it is not true. Of course, the next world belongs to
+all, but our lot in it does not come to us by right, that must be
+earned.”
+
+“The old doctrine of our Faith,” suggested Morris.
+
+“Yes; but, as I believe, there is more behind, more which we are not
+told; that we must find out for ourselves with ‘groanings which cannot
+be uttered; by hope we are saved.’ Did not St. Paul hint at it?”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that as our spirit sows, so shall it reap; as it imagines and
+desires, so shall it inherit. It is here that the soul must grow, not
+there. As the child comes into the world with a nature already formed,
+and its blood filled with gifts of strength or weakness, so shall the
+spirit come into its world wearing the garment that it has woven and
+which it cannot change.”
+
+“The garment which it has woven,” said Morris. “That means free will,
+and how does free will chime in with your fatalism, Miss Fregelius?”
+
+“Perfectly; the material given us to weave with, that is Fate; the time
+which is allotted for the task, that is Fate again; but the pattern is
+our own. Here are brushes, here is pigment, so much of it, of such and
+such colours, and here is light to work by. ‘Now paint your picture,’
+says the Master; ‘paint swiftly, with such skill as you can, not
+knowing how long is allotted for the task.’ And so we weave, and so we
+paint, every one of us—every one of us.”
+
+“What is your picture, Miss Fregelius? Tell me, if you will.”
+
+She laughed, and drew herself up. “Mine, oh! it is large. It is to
+reign like that star. It is to labour forward from age to age at the
+great tasks that God shall set me; to return and bow before His throne
+crying, ‘It is done. Behold, is the work good?’ For the hour that they
+endure it is still to be with those whom I have loved on earth,
+although they cannot see me; to soothe their sorrows, to support their
+weakness, to lull their fears. It is that the empty longing and daily
+prayer may be filled, and filled, and filled again, like a cup from a
+stream which never ceases.”
+
+“And what is that daily prayer?” asked Morris, looking at her.
+
+“O! God, touch me with Thy light, and give me understanding—yes,
+understanding—the word encloses all I seek,” she replied, then,
+checking herself, added in a changed voice, “Come, let us go home; it
+is foolish to talk long of such things.”
+
+Shortly after this curious conversation, which was never renewed
+between them, or, at least, but once, a new element entered into the
+drama, the necessary semi-comic element without which everything would
+be so dull. This fresh factor was the infatuation, which possibly the
+reader may have foreseen, of the susceptible, impulsive little man,
+Stephen Layard, for Stella Fregelius, the lady whose singing he had
+admired, and who had been a cause of war between him and his sister.
+Like many weak men, Stephen Layard was obstinate, also from boyhood up
+he had suffered much at the hands of Eliza, who was not, in fact, quite
+so young as she looked. Hence there arose in his breast a very natural
+desire for retaliation. Eliza had taken a violent dislike to Miss
+Fregelius, whom he thought charming. This circumstance in their
+strained relations was reason enough to induce Stephen to pay court to
+her, even if his natural inclination had not made the adventure very
+congenial.
+
+Therefore, on the first opportunity he called at the Abbey to ask after
+the rector, to be, as he had hoped, received by Stella. Finding his
+visit exceedingly agreeable, after a day or two he repeated it, and
+this time was conducted to the old clergyman’s bedroom, upon whom his
+civility made a good impression.
+
+Now, as it happened, although he did not live in Monksland, Mr. Layard
+was one of the largest property owners in the parish, a circumstance
+which he did not fail to impress upon the new rector. Being by nature
+and training a hard-working man who wished to do his best for his cure
+even while he lay helpless, Mr. Fregelius welcomed the advances of this
+wealthy young gentleman with enthusiasm, especially when he found that
+he was no niggard. A piece of land was wanted for the cemetery. Mr.
+Layard offered to present an acre. Money was lacking to pay off a debt
+upon the reading-room. Mr. Layard headed the subscription list with a
+handsome sum. And so forth.
+
+Now the details of these various arrangements could not conveniently be
+settled without many interviews, and thus very soon it came about that
+scarcely a day went by upon which Mr. Layard’s dog-cart did not pass
+through the Abbey gates. Generally he came in the morning and stopped
+to lunch; or he came in the afternoon and stopped to tea. In fact, or
+thus it seemed to Morris, he always stopped to something, so much so
+that although not lacking in hospitality, at times Morris found his
+presence wearisome, for in truth the two men had nothing in common.
+
+“He must have turned over a new leaf with a vengeance, for he never
+would give a sixpence to anything during old Tomley’s time,” remarked
+Morris to Stella. “I suppose that he has taken a great fancy to your
+father, which is a good thing for the parish, as those Layards are
+richer than Croesus.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Stella with a curious little smile.
+
+But to herself she did not smile; for, if Morris found his visitor a
+bore, to Stella he was nothing short of an infliction, increased rather
+than mitigated by numerous presents of hot-house fruit and flowers
+offered to herself, and entailing, each of them, an expression of
+thanks verbal or written. At first she treated the thing as a joke,
+till it grew evident that her admirer was as much in earnest as his
+nature would permit. Thereon, foreseeing eventualities, she became
+alarmed.
+
+Unless some means could be found to stop him it was now clear to Stella
+that Mr. Layard meant to propose to her, and as she had not the
+slightest intention of accepting him this was an honour which she did
+not seek. But she could find no sufficient means; hints, and even
+snubs, only seemed to add fuel to the fire, and of a perpetual game of
+hide and seek she grew weary.
+
+So it came about that at last she shrugged her shoulders and left
+things to take their chance, finding some consolation for her
+discomfort in the knowledge that Miss Layard, convinced that the
+rector’s daughter was luring her inexperienced brother into an evil
+matrimonial net, could in no wise restrain her rage and indignation. So
+openly did this lady express her views, indeed, that at length a report
+of them reached even Morris’s inattentive ears, whereon he was at first
+very angry and then burst out laughing. That a man like Stephen Layard
+should hope to marry a woman like Stella Fregelius seemed to him so
+absurd as to be almost unnatural. Yet when he came to think it over
+quietly he was constrained to admit to himself that the match would
+have many advantages for the young lady, whereof the first and foremost
+were that Stephen was very rich, and although slangy and without
+education in its better sense, at heart by no means a bad little
+fellow. So Morris shrugged his shoulders, shut his eyes, continued to
+dispense luncheons and afternoon teas, and though with an uneasy mind,
+like Stella herself, allowed things to take their chance.
+
+All this while, however, his own friendship with Stella grew apace,
+enhanced as it was in no small degree by the fact that now her help in
+his scientific operations had become most valuable. Indeed, it appeared
+that he was destined to owe the final success of his instrument to the
+assistance of women who, at the beginning, at any rate, knew little of
+its principles. Mary, it may be remembered, by some fortunate chance,
+made the suggestion as to the substance of the receiver, which turned
+the aerophone from a great idea into a practical reality. Now to
+complete the work it was Stella, not by accident, but after careful
+study of its problem who gave the thought that led to the removal of
+the one remaining obstacle to its general and successful establishment.
+
+To test this new development of the famous sound deflector and perfect
+its details, scores of experiments were needed, most of which he and
+she carried out together. This was their plan. One of them established
+him or herself in the ruined building known as the Dead Church, while
+the other took up a position in the Abbey workshop. From these
+respective points, a distance of about two miles, they tested the
+machines with results that day by day grew better and clearer, till at
+length, under these conditions they were almost perfect.
+
+Strange was the experience and great the triumph when at last Morris,
+seated in the Abbey with his apparatus before him, unconnected with its
+twin by any visible medium, was able without interruption for a whole
+morning to converse with Stella established in the Dead Church.
+
+“It is done,” he cried in unusual exultation. “Now, if I die to-morrow
+it does not matter.”
+
+Instantly came the answer in Stella’s voice.
+
+“I am very happy. If I do nothing else I have helped a man to fame.”
+
+Then a hitch arose, the inevitable hitch; it was found that, in certain
+states of the atmosphere, and sometimes at fixed hours of the day, the
+sounds coming from the receiver were almost inaudible. At other times
+again the motive force seemed to be so extraordinarily active that, the
+sound deflector notwithstanding, the instrument captured and
+transmitted a thousand noises which are not to be heard by the
+unobservant listener, or in some cases by any human ear.
+
+Weird enough these noises were at times. Like great sighs they came,
+like the moan of the breeze brought from an infinite distance, like
+mutterings and groanings arisen from the very bowels of the earth. Then
+there were the splash or boom of the waves, the piping of the sea-wind,
+the cry of curlew, or black-backed gulls, all mingled in one great and
+tangled skein of sound that choked the voice of the speaker, and in
+their aggregate, bewildered him who hearkened.
+
+These, and others which need not be detailed, were problems that had to
+be met, necessitating many more experiments. Thus it came about that
+through most of the short hours of winter daylight Morris and Stella
+found themselves at their respective positions, corresponding, or
+trying to correspond, through the aerophones. If the weather was very
+bad, or very cold, Morris went to the dead Church, otherwise that post
+was allotted to Stella, both because it was more convenient that Morris
+should stay in his laboratory, and by her own choice.
+
+Two principal reasons caused her to prefer to pass as much of her time
+as was possible in this desolate and unvisited spot. First, because Mr.
+Layard was less likely to find her when he called, and secondly, that
+for her it had a strange fascination. Indeed, she loved the place,
+clothed as it was with a thousand memories of those who had been human
+like herself, but now—were not. She would read the inscriptions upon
+the chancel stones and study the coats-of-arms and names of those
+departed, trying to give to each lost man and woman a shape and
+character, till at length she knew all the monuments by appearance as
+well as by the names inscribed upon them.
+
+One of these dead, oddly enough, had been named Stella Ethel Smythe,
+daughter of Sir Thomas Smythe, whose family lived at the old hall now
+in the possession of the Layards. This Stella had died at the age of
+twenty-five in the year 1741, and her tombstone recorded that in mind
+she was clean and sweet, and in body beautiful. Also at the foot of it
+was a doggerel couplet, written probably by her bereaved father, which
+ran:
+
+“Though here my Star seems set,
+I know ‘twill light me yet.”
+
+
+Stella, the live Stella, thought these simple words very touching, and
+pointed them out to Morris. He agreed with her, and tried in the
+records of the parish and elsewhere to discover some details about the
+dead girl’s life, but quite without avail.
+
+“That’s all that’s left,” he said one day, nodding his head at the
+tombstone. “The star is quite set.”
+
+“‘I know ‘twill light me yet,’” murmured his companion, as she turned
+away to the work in hand. “Sometimes,” she went on, “as I sit here at
+dusk listening to all the strange sounds which come from that receiver,
+I fancy that I can hear Stella and her poor father talking while they
+watch me; only I cannot understand their language.”
+
+“Ah!” said Morris, “if that were right we should have found a means of
+communication from the dead and with the unseen world at large.”
+
+“Why not?” asked Stella.
+
+“I don’t know, I have thought of it,” he answered, and the subject
+dropped.
+
+One afternoon Stella, wrapped in thick cloaks, was seated in the
+chancel of the Dead Church attending to the instrument which stood upon
+the stone altar. Morris had not wished her to go that morning, for the
+weather was very coarse, and snow threatened; but, anticipating a visit
+from Mr. Layard, she insisted, saying that she should enjoy the walk.
+Now the experiments were in progress, and going beautifully. In order
+to test the aerophones fully in this rough weather, Morris and Stella
+had agreed to read to each other alternate verses from the Book of Job,
+beginning at the thirty-eighth chapter.
+
+“‘Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands
+of Orion?’” read Stella presently in her rich, clear voice.
+
+Instantly from two miles away came the next verse, the sound of those
+splendid words rolling down the old church like echoes of some lesson
+read generations since.
+
+“‘Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or canst thou guide
+Arcturus with his sons?’”
+
+So it went on for a few more verses, till just as the instrument was
+saying, “‘Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts, or who hath given
+understanding to the heart?’” the rude door in the brick partition
+opened, admitting a rush of wind and—Stephen Layard.
+
+The little man sidled up nervously to where Stella was sitting on a
+camp-stool by the altar.
+
+“How do you do?” said Stella, holding out her hand, and looking
+surprised.
+
+“How do you do, Miss Fregelius? What—what are you doing in this
+dreadfully cold place on such a bitter day?”
+
+Before she could answer the voice of Morris, anxious and irritated, for
+as the next verse did not follow he concluded that something had gone
+wrong with the apparatus, rang through the church asking:
+
+“‘Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts, or who hath given
+understanding to the heart?’”
+
+“Good gracious,” said Mr. Layard. “I had no idea that Monk was here; I
+left him at the Abbey. Where is he?”
+
+“At the Abbey,” answered Stella, as for the second time the voice of
+Morris rolled out the question from the Book.
+
+“I don’t understand,” said Stephen, beginning to look frightened; “has
+it anything to do with his electrical experiments?”
+
+Stella nodded. Then, addressing the instrument, said:
+
+“Please stop reading for a while. Mr. Layard is calling here.”
+
+“Confound him,” came the swift answer. “Let me know when he is gone. He
+said he was going home,” whereon Stella switched off before worse
+things happened.
+
+Mr. Layard, who had heard these words, began a confused explanation
+till Stella broke in.
+
+“Please don’t apologise. You changed your mind, and we all do that; but
+I am afraid this is a cold place to come to.”
+
+“You are right there. Why on earth do you sit here so long?”
+
+“To work, Mr. Layard.”
+
+“Why should you work? I thought women hated it, and above all, why for
+Monk? Does he pay you?”
+
+“I work because I like work, and shall go on working till I die, and
+afterwards I hope; also, these experiments interest me very much. Mr.
+Monk does not pay me. I have never asked him to do so. Indeed, it is I
+who am in his debt for all the kindness he has shown to my father and
+myself. To any little assistance that I can give him he is welcome.”
+
+“I see,” said Mr. Layard; “but I should have thought that was Mary
+Porson’s job. You know he is engaged to her, don’t you?”
+
+“Yes, but Miss Porson is not here; and if she were, perhaps she would
+not care for this particular work.”
+
+Then came a pause, which, not knowing what this awkward silence might
+breed, Stella broke.
+
+“I suppose you saw my father,” she said; “how did you find him
+looking?”
+
+“Oh! better, I thought; but that leg of his still seems very bad.”
+Then, with a gasp and a great effort, he went on: “I have been speaking
+to him about you.”
+
+“Indeed,” said Stella, looking at him with wondering eyes.
+
+“Yes, and he says that if—it suits us both, he is quite willing; that,
+in fact, he would be very pleased to see you so well provided for.”
+
+Stella could not say that she did not understand, the falsehood was too
+obvious. So she merely went on looking, a circumstance from which Mr.
+Layard drew false auguries.
+
+“You know what I mean, don’t you?” he jerked out.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“I mean—I mean that I love you, that you have given me what this horrid
+thing was talking about just now—understanding to the heart; yes,
+that’s it, understanding to the heart. Will you marry me, Stella? I
+will make you a good husband, and it isn’t a bad place, and all that,
+and though your father says he has little to leave you, you will be
+treated as liberally as though you were a lady in your own right.”
+
+Stella smiled a little.
+
+“Will you marry me?” he asked again.
+
+“I am afraid that I must answer no, Mr. Layard.”
+
+Then the poor man broke out into a rhapsody of bitter disappointment,
+genuine emotion, and passionate entreaty.
+
+“It is no use, Mr. Layard,” said Stella at last. “Indeed, I am much
+obliged to you. You have paid me a great compliment, but it is not
+possible that I should become your wife, and the sooner that is clear
+the better for us both.”
+
+“Are you engaged?” he asked.
+
+“No, Mr. Layard; and probably I never shall be. I have my own ideas
+about matrimony, and the conditions under which I would undertake it
+are not at all likely ever to be within my reach.”
+
+Again he implored,—for at the time this woman really held his
+heart,—wringing his hands, and, indeed, weeping in the agony of a
+repulse which was the more dreadful because it was quite unexpected. He
+had scarcely imagined that this poor clergyman’s daughter, who had
+little but her looks and a sweet voice, would really refuse the best
+match for twenty miles round, nor had his conversation with her father
+suggested to his mind any such idea.
+
+It was true that Mr. Fregelius had given him no absolute encouragement;
+he had said that personally the marriage would be very pleasing to
+himself, but that it was a matter of which Stella must judge; and when
+asked whether he would speak to his daughter, he had emphatically
+declined. Still, Stephen Layard had taken this to be all a part of the
+paternal formula, and rejoiced, thinking the matter as good as settled.
+Dreadful indeed, then, was it to him when he found that he was called
+upon to contemplate the dull obverse of his shield of faith, and not
+its bright and shining face, in which he had seen mirrored so clear a
+picture of perfect happiness.
+
+So he begged on piteously enough, till at last Stella was forced to
+stop him by saying as gently as she could:
+
+“Please spare us both, Mr. Layard; I have given my answer, and I am
+sorry to say that it is impossible for me to go back upon my word.”
+
+Then a sudden fury seized him.
+
+“You are in love with somebody else,” he said; “you are in love with
+Morris Monk; and he is a villain, when he is engaged, to go taking you
+too. I know it.”
+
+“Then, Mr. Layard,” said Stella, striving to keep her temper, “you know
+more than I know myself.”
+
+“Very likely,” he answered. “I never said you knew it, but it’s true,
+for all that. I feel it here—where you will feel it one day, to your
+sorrow”—and he placed his hand upon his heart.
+
+A sudden terror took hold of her, but with difficulty she found her
+mental balance.
+
+“I hoped, Mr. Layard,” she said, “that we might have parted friends;
+but how can we when you bring such accusations?”
+
+“I retract them,” broke in the distracted man. “You mustn’t think
+anything of what I said; it is only the pain that has made me mad. For
+God’s sake, at least let us part friends, for then, perhaps, some day
+we may come together again.”
+
+Stella shook her head sadly, and gave him her hand, which he covered
+with kisses. Then, reeling in his gait like one drunken, the unhappy
+suitor departed into the falling snow.
+
+Mechanically Stella switched on the instrument, and at once Morris’s
+voice was heard asking:
+
+“I say, hasn’t he gone?”
+
+“Yes,” she said.
+
+“Thank goodness! Why on earth did you keep him gossiping all that time?
+Now then—‘Who can number the clouds in wisdom——‘”
+
+“Not Mr. Layard or I,” thought Stella sadly to herself, as she called
+back the answering verse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+TWO QUESTIONS, AND THE ANSWER
+
+
+At length the light began to fade, and for that day their experiments
+were over. In token of their conclusion twice Stella rang the electric
+warning bell which was attached to the aerophone, and in some
+mysterious manner caused the bell of its twin instrument to ring also.
+Then she packed the apparatus in its box, for, with its batteries, it
+was too heavy and too delicate to be carried conveniently, locking it
+up, and left the church, which she also locked behind her. Outside it
+was still snowing fast, but softly, for the wind had dropped, and a
+sharp frost was setting in, causing the fallen snow to scrunch beneath
+her feet. About half-way along the bleak line of deserted cliff which
+stretched from the Dead Church to the first houses of Monksland, she
+saw the figure of a man walking swiftly towards her, and knew from the
+bent head and broad, slightly stooping shoulders that it was Morris
+coming to escort her home. Presently they met.
+
+“Why did you not wait for me?” he asked in an irritated voice, “I told
+you I was coming, and you know that I do not like you to be tramping
+about these lonely cliffs at this hour.”
+
+“It is very kind of you,” she answered, smiling that slow, soft smile
+which was characteristic of her when she was pleased, a smile that
+seemed to be born in her beautiful eyes and thence to irradiate her
+whole face; “but it was growing dreary and cold there, so I thought
+that I would start.”
+
+“Yes,” he answered, “I forgot, and, what is more, it is very selfish of
+me to keep you cooped up in such a place upon a winter’s day.
+Enthusiasm makes one forget everything.”
+
+“At least without it we should do nothing; besides, please do not pity
+me, for I have never been happier in my life.”
+
+“I am most grateful,” he said earnestly. “I don’t know what I should
+have done without you through this critical time, or what I shall——”
+and he stopped.
+
+“It went beautifully to-day, didn’t it?” she broke in, as though she
+had not heard his words.
+
+“Yes,” he answered, “beyond all expectations. We must experiment over a
+greater distance, and then if the thing still works I shall be able to
+speak with my critics in the gate. You know I have kept everything as
+dark as possible up to the present, for it is foolish to talk first and
+fail afterwards. I prefer to succeed first and talk afterwards.”
+
+“What a triumph it will be!” said Stella. “All those clever scientists
+will arrive prepared to mock, then think they are taken in, and at last
+go away astonished to write columns upon columns in the papers.”
+
+“And after that?” queried Morris.
+
+“Oh, after that, honour and glory and wealth and power and—the happy
+ending. Doesn’t it sound nice?”
+
+“Ye—es, in a way. But,” he added with energy, “it won’t come off. No,
+not the aerophones, they are right enough I believe, but all the rest
+of it.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because it is too much. ‘Happy endings’ don’t come off. The happiness
+lies in the struggle, you know,—an old saying, but quite true.
+Afterwards something intervenes.”
+
+“To have struggled happily and successfully is happiness in itself.
+Whatever comes afterwards nothing can take that away. ‘I have done
+something; it is good; it cannot be changed; it is a stone built for
+ever in the pyramid of beauty, or knowledge, or advancement.’ What can
+man hope to say more at the last, and how few live to say it, to say it
+truly? You will leave a great name behind you, Mr. Monk.”
+
+“I shall leave my work; that is enough for me,” he answered.
+
+For a while they walked in silence; then some thought struck him, and
+he stopped to ask:
+
+“Why did Layard come to the Dead Church to-day? He said that he was
+going home, and it isn’t on his road.”
+
+Stella turned her head, but, even in that faint light, not quickly
+enough to prevent him seeing a sudden flush change the pallor of her
+face to the rich colour of her lips.
+
+“To call, I suppose; or,” correcting herself, “perhaps from curiosity.”
+
+“And what did he talk about?”
+
+“Oh, the aerophone, I think; I don’t remember.”
+
+“That must be a story,” he said, laughing. “I always remember Layard’s
+conversation for longer than I want; it has a knack of impressing
+itself upon me. What was it? Cemetery land, church debts, the new
+drainage scheme, or something equally entrancing and confidential?”
+
+Under this cross-examination Stella grew desperate, unnecessarily,
+perhaps, and said in a voice that was almost cross:
+
+“I cannot tell you; please let’s talk of something else.”
+
+Then of a sudden Morris understood, and, like a foolish man, at once
+jumped to a conclusion far other than the truth. Doubtless Layard had
+gone to the church to propose to Stella, and she had accepted him, or
+half accepted him; the confusion of her manner told its own tale. A new
+and strange sensation took possession of Morris. He felt unwell; he
+felt angry; if the aerophone refused to work at all to-morrow, he would
+care nothing. He could not see quite clearly, and was not altogether
+sure where he was walking.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” he said in a cold voice, as he recovered himself;
+“it was most impertinent of me.” He was going to add, “pray accept my
+congratulations,” but fortunately, or unfortunately, stopped himself in
+time.
+
+Stella divined something of what was passing in his mind; not all,
+indeed, for to her the full measure of his folly would have been
+incomprehensible. For a moment she contemplated an explanation, then
+abandoned the idea because she could find no words; because, also, this
+was another person’s secret, and she had no right to involve an honest
+man, who had paid her a great compliment, in her confidences. So she
+said nothing. To Morris, for the moment at any rate, a conclusive proof
+of his worst suspicions.
+
+The rest of that walk was marked by unbroken silence. Both of them were
+very glad when it was finished.
+
+It was five o’clock when they reached the Abbey, so that there were two
+hours to be spent before it was time to dress for dinner. When she had
+taken off her things Stella went straight to her father’s room to give
+him his tea. By now Mr. Fregelius was much better, although the nature
+of his injuries made it imperative that he should still stay in bed.
+
+“Is that you, Stella?” he said, in his high, nervous voice, and,
+although she could not see them in the shadow of the curtain, she knew
+that his quick eyes were watching her face eagerly.
+
+“Yes, father, I have brought you your tea. Are you ready for it?”
+
+“Thank you, my dear. Have you been at that place—what do you call
+it?—the Dead Church, all day?”
+
+“Yes, and the experiments went beautifully.”
+
+“Did they, did they indeed?” commented her father in an uninterested
+voice. The fate of the experiments did not move him. “Isn’t it very
+lonely up there in that old church?”
+
+“I prefer to be alone—generally.”
+
+“I know, I know. Forgive me; but you are a very odd woman, my dear.”
+
+“Perhaps, father; but not more so than those before me, am I? Most of
+them were a little different from other people, I have been told.”
+
+“Quite right, Stella; they were all odd women, but I think that you are
+quite the oddest of the family.” Then, as though the subject were
+disagreeable to him, he added suddenly: “Mr. Layard came to see me
+to-day.”
+
+“So he told me,” answered Stella.
+
+“Oh, you have met him. I remember; he said he should call in at the
+Dead Church, as he had something to say to you.”
+
+Stella determined to get the conversation over, so she forced the pace.
+She was a person who liked to have disagreeable things behind her.
+Drawing herself up, she answered steadily:
+
+“He did call in, and—he said it.”
+
+“What, my dear, what?” asked Mr. Fregelius innocently.
+
+“He asked me to marry him, father; I think he told me with your
+consent.”
+
+Mr. Fregelius, auguring the very best from this openness, answered in
+tones which he could not prevent from betraying an unseemly joy.
+
+“Quite true, Stella; I told him to go on and prosper; and really I hope
+he has prospered.”
+
+“Yes,” said Stella reflectively.
+
+“Then, my dear love, am I to understand that you are engaged to him?”
+
+“Engaged to him! Certainly not,” she answered.
+
+“Then,” snapped out her justly indignant parent, “how in the name of
+Heaven has he prospered?”
+
+“By my refusing him, of course. We should never have suited each other
+at all; he would have been miserable if I had married him.”
+
+Mr. Fregelius groaned in bitterness of spirit.
+
+“Oh, Stella, Stella,” he cried, “what a disappointment!”
+
+“Why should you be disappointed, father dear?” she asked gently.
+
+“Why? You stand there and ask why, when I hear that my daughter, who
+will scarcely have a sixpence—or at least very few of them—has refused
+a young man with between seventeen and eighteen thousand pounds a
+year—that’s his exact income, for he told me himself, a most estimable
+churchman, who would have been a pillar of strength to me, a man whom I
+should have chosen out of ten thousand as a son-in-law——” and he
+ceased, overwhelmed.
+
+“Father, I am sorry that you are sorry, but it is strange you should
+understand me so little after all these years, that you could for one
+moment think that I should marry Mr. Layard.”
+
+“And why not, pray? Are you better born——”
+
+“Yes,” interrupted Stella, whose one pride was that of her ancient
+lineage.
+
+“I didn’t mean that. I meant better bred and generally superior to him?
+You talk as though you were of a different clay.”
+
+“Perhaps the clay is the same,” said Stella, “but the mind is not.”
+
+“Oh, there it is again, spiritual and intellectual pride, which causes
+you to set yourself above your fellows, and in the end will be your
+ruin. It has made a lonely woman of you for years, and it will do worse
+than that. It will turn you into an old maid—if you live,” he added, as
+though shaken by some sudden memory.
+
+“Perhaps,” said Stella, “I am not frightened at the prospect. I daresay
+that I shall have a little money and at the worst I can always earn a
+living; my voice would help me to it, if nothing else does. Father,
+dear, you mustn’t be vexed with me; and pray—pray do understand that no
+earthly thing would make me marry a man whom I dislike rather than
+otherwise; who, at least, is not a mate for me, merely because he could
+give me a fine house to live in, and treat me luxuriously. What would
+be the good of such things to me if I knew that I had tarnished myself
+and violated my instincts?”
+
+“You talk like a book—you talk like a book,” muttered the old
+gentleman. “But I know that the end of it will be wretchedness for
+everybody. People who go on as you do about instincts, and fine
+feelings, and all that stuff, are just the ones who get into some
+dreadful mess at last. I tell you that such ideas are some of the
+devil’s best baits.”
+
+Stella began to grow indignant.
+
+“Do you think, father, that you ought to talk to me quite like that?”
+she asked. “Don’t you know me well enough to be sure that I should
+never get into what you call a mess—at least, not in the way I suppose
+you mean? My heart and thought are my own, and I shall be prepared to
+render account of them; for the rest, you need not be afraid.”
+
+“I didn’t mean that—I didn’t mean anything of the sort——”
+
+“I am glad to hear it,” broke in Stella. “It would scarcely have been
+kind, especially as I am no longer a child who needs to be warned
+against the dangers of the world.”
+
+“What I did mean is that you are an enigma; that I am frightened about
+you; that you are no companion; because your thoughts—yes, and at times
+your face, too—seem unnatural, unearthly, and separate you from others,
+as they have separated you from this poor young man.”
+
+“I am what I was made,” answered Stella with a little smile, “and I
+seek company where I can find it. Some love the natural, some the
+spiritual, and each receive from them their good. Why should they blame
+one another?”
+
+“Mad,” muttered her father to himself as she left the room. “Mad as she
+is charming and beautiful; or, if not mad, at least quite impracticable
+and unfitted for the world. What a disappointment to me—what a bitter
+disappointment! Well, I should be used to them by now.”
+
+Meanwhile, Morris was in his workshop in the old chapel entering up his
+record of the day’s experiments, which done, he drew his chair to the
+stove and fell into thought. Somehow the idea of the engagement of Miss
+Fregelius to Stephen Layard was not agreeable to him; probably because
+he did not care about the young man. Yet, now that he came to think of
+it quietly, in all her circumstances it would be an admirable
+arrangement, and the offer undoubtedly was one which she had been wise
+to accept. On the whole, such a marriage would be as happy as marriages
+generally are. The man was honest, the man was young and rich, and very
+soon the man would be completely at the disposal of his brilliant and
+beautiful wife.
+
+Personally he, Morris, would lose a friend, since a woman cannot marry
+and remain the friend of another man. That, however, would probably
+have happened in any case, and to object on this account, even in his
+secret heart, would be abominably selfish. Indeed, what right had he
+even to consider the matter? The young lady had come into his life very
+strangely, and made a curious impression upon him; she was now going
+out of it by ordinary channels, and soon nothing but the impression
+would remain. It was proper, natural, and the way of the world; there
+was nothing more to be said.
+
+Somehow he was in a dreary mood, and everything bored him. He fetched
+Mary’s last letter. There was nothing in it but some chit-chat, except
+the postscript, which was rather longer than the letter, and ran:
+
+“I am glad to hear the young lady whom you fished up out of the sea is
+such an assistance to you in your experiments. I gather from what I
+hear—although you haven’t mentioned the fact—that she is as beautiful
+as she is charming, and that she sings wonderfully. She must be
+something remarkable, I am sure, because Eliza Layard evidently detests
+her, and says that she is trying to ensnare the affections of that
+squire of dames, her brother Stephen, now temporarily homeless after a
+visit to Jane Rose. What will you do when you have to get on without
+her? I am afraid you must accustom yourself to the idea, unless she
+would like to make a third in the honeymoon party. Joking apart, I am
+exceedingly grateful to her for all the help she has given you, and,
+dear, dear Morris, more delighted than I can tell you to learn that
+after all your years of patient labour you believe success to be
+absolutely within sight.
+
+“My father, I am sorry to say, is no better; indeed, although the
+doctors deny it, I believe he is worse, and I see no prospect of our
+getting away from here at present. However, don’t let that bother you,
+and above all, don’t think of coming out to this place which makes you
+miserable, and where you can’t work. What a queer ménage you must be at
+the Abbey now! You and the Star who has risen from the ocean—she ought
+to have been called Venus—tête-à-tête, and the, I gather, rather feeble
+and uninteresting old gentleman in bed upstairs. I should like to see
+you when you didn’t know. Why don’t you invent a machine to enable
+people at a distance to see as well as to hear each other? It would be
+very popular and bring Society to utter wreck. Does the Northern
+star—she is Danish, isn’t she?—make good coffee, and how, oh! how does
+she get on with the cook?”
+
+Morris put down the letter and laughed aloud. Mary was as amusing as
+ever, and he longed to see her again, especially as he was convinced
+that she was really bored out there at Beaulieu, with Mr. Porson sick,
+and his father very much occupied with his own affairs. In a moment he
+made up his mind; he would go out and see her. Of course, he could ill
+spare the time, but for the present the more pressing of his
+experiments were completed, and he could write up his “data” there.
+Anyway, he would put in a fortnight at Beaulieu, and, what is more,
+start to-morrow if it could be arranged.
+
+He went to the table and began a letter to Mary announcing that she
+might expect to see him sometime on the day that it reached her. When
+he had got so far as this he remembered that the dressing bell had
+already rung some minutes, and ran upstairs to change his clothes. As
+he fastened his tie he thought to himself sadly that this would be his
+last dinner with Stella Fregelius, and as he brushed his hair he
+determined that unless she had other wishes, it should be as happy as
+it could be made. He would like this final meal to be the pleasantest
+of all their meals, and although, of course, he had no right to form an
+opinion on the matter, he thought that perhaps she might like it, too.
+They were going to part, to enter on different walks of life—for now,
+be it said, he had quite convinced himself that she was engaged—so let
+their parting memories of each other be as agreeable as possible.
+
+Meanwhile, Stella also had her reflections. Her conversation with her
+father had troubled her, more, perhaps, than her remarks might have
+suggested. There was little between this pair except the bond of blood,
+which sometimes seems to be so curiously accidental, so absolutely
+devoid of influence in promoting mutual sympathies, or in opening the
+door to any deep and real affection. Still, notwithstanding this lack
+of true intimacy, Stella loved her father as she felt that he loved
+her, and it gave her pain to be forced to cross his wishes. She knew
+with what a fierce desire, although he was ashamed to express all its
+intensity, he desired that she should accept this, the first chance of
+wealthy and successful marriage that had come her way, and the anguish
+which her absolute refusal must have entailed upon his heart.
+
+Of course, it was very worldly of him, and therefore reprehensible; yet
+to a great extent she could sympathise with his disappointment. At
+bottom he was a proud man, although he repressed his pride and kept it
+secret. He was an ambitious man, also, and his lot had been confined to
+humble tasks, absolutely unrecognised beyond his parish, of a
+remotely-placed country parson. Moreover, his family had been rich; he
+had been brought up to believe that he himself would be rich, and then,
+owing to certain circumstances, was doomed to pass his days in
+comparative poverty.
+
+Even death had laid a heavy hand on him; she was the last of her race,
+and she knew he earnestly desired that she should marry and bear
+children so that it might not become extinct. And now this chance, this
+princely chance, which, from his point of view, seemed to fill every
+possible condition, had come unawares, like a messenger from Heaven,
+and she refused its entertainment. Looked at through his eyes the
+position was indeed cruel.
+
+Yet, deeply as she sympathised with him in his disappointment, Stella
+never for one moment wavered in her determination. Marry Mr. Layard!
+Her blood shrank back to her heart at the very thought, and then rushed
+to her neck and bosom in a flood of shame. No, she was sorry, but that
+was impossible, a thing which no woman should be asked to do against
+her will.
+
+The subject wearied her, but as brooding on it could not mend matters,
+she dismissed it from her mind, and turned her thoughts to Morris. Why,
+she did not know, but something had come between them; he was vexed
+with her, and what was more, disappointed; she could feel it well
+enough, and—she found his displeasure painful. What had she done wrong,
+how had she offended him? Surely it could not be—and once again that
+red blush spread itself over face and bosom. He could not believe that
+she had accepted the man! He could never have so grossly misunderstood
+her, her nature, her ideas, everything about her! And yet who knew what
+he would or would not believe? In some ways, as she had already
+discovered, Mr. Monk was curiously simple. How could she tell him the
+truth without using words which she did not desire to speak? Here
+instinct came to her aid. It might be done by making herself as
+agreeable to him as possible, for surely he must know that no girl
+would do her best to please one man when she had just promised herself
+to another. So it came about that quite innocently Stella determined to
+allay her host’s misgivings by this doubtful and dangerous expedient.
+
+To begin with, she put on her best dress—a low bodice of black silk
+relieved with white and a single scarlet rose from the hothouse. Round
+her neck also, fastened by a thin chain, she wore a large blood-red
+carbuncle shaped like a heart, and about her slender waist a quaint
+girdle of ancient Danish silver, two of the ornaments which she had
+saved from the shipwreck. Her dark and waving hair she parted in the
+middle after a new fashion, tying its masses in a heavy knot at the
+back of her head, and thus adorned descended to the library where
+Morris was awaiting her.
+
+He stood leaning over the fire with his back towards her, but hearing
+the sweep of a skirt turned round, and as his eyes fell upon her,
+started a little. Never till he saw her thus had he known how beautiful
+Stella was at times. Quite without design his eyes betrayed his
+thought, but with his lips he said merely as he offered her his arm,—
+
+“What a pretty dress! Did it come out of Northwold?”
+
+“The material did; I made it up, and I am glad that you think it nice.”
+
+This was a propitious beginning, and the dinner that followed did not
+belie its promise. The conversation turned upon one of the Norse sagas
+that Stella had translated, for which Morris had promised to try to
+find a publisher. Then abandoning the silence and reserve which were
+habitual to him he began to talk, asking her about her work and her
+past. She answered him freely enough, telling him of her school days in
+Denmark, of her long holiday visits to the old Danish grandmother,
+whose memory stretched back through three generations, and whose mind
+was stored with traditions of men and days now long forgotten. This
+particular saga, she said, had, for instance, never been written in its
+entirety till she took it down from the old dame’s lips, much as in the
+fifteenth century the Iceland sagas were recorded by Snorro Sturleson
+and others. Even the traditional music of the songs as they were sung
+centuries ago she had received from her with their violin
+accompaniments.
+
+“I have one in the house,” broke in Morris, “a violin—rather a good
+instrument; I used to play a little when I was young. I wish, if you
+don’t mind, that you would sing them to me after dinner.”
+
+“I will try if you like,” she answered, “but I don’t know how I shall
+get on, for my own old fiddle, to which I am accustomed, went to the
+bottom with a lot of other things in that unlucky shipwreck. You know
+we came by sea because it seemed so cheap, and that was the end of our
+economy. Fortunately, all our heavy baggage and furniture were not
+ready, and escaped.”
+
+“I do not call it unlucky,” said Morris with grave courtesy, “since it
+gave me the honour of your acquaintance; or perhaps I may say of your
+friendship.”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, looking pleased; “certainly you may say of my
+friendship. It is owing to the man who saved my life, is it not,—with a
+great deal more that I can never pay?”
+
+“Don’t speak of it,” he said. “That midnight sail was my one happy
+inspiration, my one piece of real good luck.”
+
+“Perhaps,” and she sighed, “that is, for me, though who can tell? I
+have often wondered what made you do it, there was so little to go on.”
+
+“I have told you, inspiration, pure inspiration.”
+
+“And what sent the inspiration, Mr. Monk?”
+
+“Fate, I suppose.”
+
+“Yes, I think it must be what we call fate—if it troubles itself about
+so small a thing as the life of one woman.”
+
+Then, to change the subject, she began to talk of the Northumberland
+moors and mountains, and of their years of rather dreary existence
+among them, till at length it was time to leave the table. This they
+did together, for even then Morris drank very little wine.
+
+“May I get you the violin, and will you sing?” he asked eagerly, when
+they reached the library.
+
+“If you wish it I will try.”
+
+“Then come to the chapel; there is a good fire, and it is put away
+there.”
+
+Presently they were in the ancient place, where Morris produced the
+violin from the cupboard, and having set a new string began to tune it.
+
+“That is a very good instrument,” said Stella, her eyes shining, “you
+don’t know what you have brought upon yourself. Playing the violin is
+my pet insanity, and once or twice since I have been here, when I
+wanted it, I have cried over the loss of mine, especially as I can’t
+afford to buy another. Oh! what a lovely night it is; look at the full
+moon shining on the sea and snow. I never remember her so bright; and
+the stars, too; they glitter like great diamonds.”
+
+“It is the frost,” answered Morris. “Yes, everything is beautiful
+to-night.”
+
+Stella took the violin, played a note or two, then screwed up the
+strings to her liking.
+
+“Do you really wish me to sing, Mr. Monk?” she asked.
+
+“Of course; more than I can tell you.”
+
+“Then, will you think me very odd if I ask you to turn out the electric
+lamps? I can sing best so. You stand by the fire, so that I can see my
+audience; the moon through this window will give me all the light I
+want.”
+
+He obeyed, and now she was but an ethereal figure, with a patch of red
+at her heart, and a line of glimmering white from the silver girdle
+beneath her breast, on whose pale face the moonbeams poured sweetly.
+For a while she stood thus, and the silence was heavy in that
+beautiful, dismantled place of prayer. Then she lifted the violin, and
+from the first touch of the bow Morris knew that he was in the presence
+of a mistress of one of the most entrancing of the arts. Slow and sweet
+came the plaintive, penetrating sounds, that seemed to pass into his
+heart and thrill his every nerve. Now they swelled louder, now they
+almost died away; and now, only touching the strings from time to time,
+she began to sing in her rich, contralto voice. He could not understand
+the words, but their burden was clear enough; they were a lament, the
+lament of some sorrowing woman, the sweet embodiment of an ancient and
+forgotten grief thus embalmed in heavenly music.
+
+It was done; the echoes of the following notes of the violin fainted
+and died among the carven angels of the roof. It was done, and Morris
+sighed aloud.
+
+“How can I thank you?” he said. “I knew that you were a musician, but
+not that you had such genius. To listen to you makes a man feel very
+humble.”
+
+She laughed. “The voice is a mere gift, for which no one deserves
+credit, although, of course, it can be improved.”
+
+“If so, what of the accompaniment?”
+
+“That is different; that comes from the heart and hard work. Do you
+know that when I was under my old master out in Denmark, who in his
+time was one of the finest of violinists in the north of Europe, I
+often played for five and sang for two hours a day? Also, I have never
+let the thing drop; it has been the consolation and amusement of a
+somewhat lonely life. So, by this time, I ought to understand my art,
+although there remains much to be learnt.”
+
+“Understand it! Why, you could make a fortune on the stage.”
+
+“A living, perhaps, if my voice will bear the continual strain. I
+daresay that some time I shall drift there—for the living—not because I
+like the trade or have any wish for popular success. It is a fact that
+I had far rather sing alone to you here to-night, and know that you are
+pleased, than be cheered by a whole opera house full of strange
+people.”
+
+“And I—oh, I cannot explain! Sing on, sing all you can, for to-morrow I
+must go away.”
+
+“Go away!” she faltered.
+
+“Yes; I will explain to you afterwards. But please sing while I am here
+to listen.”
+
+The words struck heavy on her heart, numbing it—why, she knew not. For
+a moment she felt helpless, as though she could neither sing nor play.
+She did not wish him to go; she did not wish him to go. Her intellect
+came to her aid. Why should he go? Heaven had given her power, and this
+man could feel its weight. Would it not suffice to keep him from going?
+She would try; she would play and sing as she had never done before;
+sing till his heart was soft, play till his feet had no strength to
+wander beyond the sound of the sweet notes her art could summon from
+this instrument of strings and wood.
+
+So again she began, and played on, and on, and on, from time to time
+letting the bow fall, to sing in a flood of heavenly melody that seemed
+by nature to fall from her lips, note after note, as dew or honey fall
+drop by drop from the calyx of some perfect flower. How long did she
+play and sing those sad, mysterious siren songs? They never knew. The
+moon travelled on its appointed course, and as its beams passed away
+gradually that divine musician grew dimmer to his sight. Now only the
+stars threw their faint light about her, but still she played on, and
+on, and on. The music swelled, it told of dead and ancient wars, “where
+all day long the noise of battle rolled”; it rose shrill and high, and
+in it rang the scream of the Valkyries preparing the feast of Odin. It
+was low, and sad, and tender, the voice of women mourning for their
+dead. It changed; it grew unearthly, spiritualised, such music as those
+might use who welcome souls to their long home. Lastly, it became rich
+and soft and far as the echo of a dream, and through it could be heard
+sighs and the broken words of love, that slowly fell away and melted as
+into the nothingness of some happy sleep.
+
+The singer was weary; her fingers could no longer guide the bow; her
+voice grew faint. For a moment, she stood still, looking in the flicker
+of the fire and the pale beams of the stars like some searcher returned
+from heaven to earth. Then, half fainting, down she sank upon a chair.
+
+Morris turned on the lamps, and looked at this fair being, this chosen
+home of Music, who lay before him like a broken lily. Then back into
+his heart with a chilling shock came the thought that this woman, to
+him at least the most beautiful and gifted his eyes had seen, had
+promised herself in marriage to Stephen Layard; that she, her body, her
+mind, her music—all that made her the Stella Fregelius whom he
+knew—were the actual property of Stephen Layard. Could it be true? Was
+it not possible that he had made some mistake? that he had
+misunderstood? A burning desire came upon him to know, to know before
+he went, and upon the forceful impulse of that moment he did what at
+any other time would have filled him with horror. He asked her; the
+words broke from his lips; he could not help them.
+
+“Is it true,” he said, with something like a groan, “can it be true
+that you—_you_ are really going to marry that man?”
+
+Stella sat up and looked at him. So she had guessed aright. She made no
+pretence of fencing with him, or of pretending that she did not know to
+whom he referred.
+
+“Are you mad to ask me such a thing?” she asked, with a strange break
+in her voice.
+
+“I am sorry,” he began.
+
+She stamped her foot upon the ground.
+
+“Oh!” she said, “it hurts me, it hurts—from my father I understood, but
+that you should think it possible that I would sell myself—I tell you
+that it hurts,” and as she spoke two large tears began to roll from her
+lovely pleading eyes.
+
+“Then you mean that you refused him?”
+
+“What else?”
+
+“Thank you. Of course, I have no right to interfere, but forgive me if
+I say that I cannot help feeling glad. Even if it is taken on the
+ground of wealth you can easily make as much money as you want without
+him,” and he glanced at the violin which lay beside her.
+
+She made no reply, the subject seemed to have passed from her mind. But
+presently she lifted her head again, and in her turn asked a question.
+
+“Did you not say that you are going away to-morrow?”
+
+Then something happened to the heart and brain and tongue of Morris
+Monk so that he could not speak the thing he wished. He meant to answer
+a monosyllable “Yes,” but in its place he replied with a whole
+sentence.
+
+“I was thinking of doing so; but after all I do not know that it will
+be necessary; especially in the middle of our experiments.”
+
+Stella said nothing, not a single word. Only she found her
+handkerchief, and without in the least attempting to hide them, there
+before his eyes wiped the two tears off her face, first one and then
+the other.
+
+This done she held out her hand to him and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE RETURN OF THE COLONEL
+
+
+Next morning Morris and Stella met at breakfast as usual, but as though
+by mutual consent neither of them alluded to the events of the previous
+evening. Thus the name of Mr. Layard was “taboo,” nor were any more
+questions asked, or statements volunteered as to that journey, the
+toils of which Morris had suddenly discovered he was after all able to
+avoid. This morning, as it chanced, no experiments were carried on,
+principally because it was necessary for Stella to spend the day in the
+village doing various things on behalf of her father, and lunching with
+the wife of Dr. Charters, who was one of the churchwardens.
+
+By the second post, which arrived about three o’clock, Morris received
+two letters, one from his father and one from Mary. There was something
+about the aspect of these letters that held his eye. That from his
+father was addressed with unusual neatness, the bold letters being
+written with all the care of a candidate in a calligraphic competition.
+The stamps also were affixed very evenly, and the envelope was
+beautifully sealed with the full Monk coat done in black wax. These, as
+experience told him, were signs that his father had something important
+to communicate, since otherwise everything connected with his letters
+was much more casual. Further, to speak at hazard, he should judge that
+this matter, whatever it might be, was not altogether disagreeable to
+the writer.
+
+Mary’s letter also had its peculiarities. She always wrote in a large,
+loose scrawl, running the words into one another after the idle fashion
+which was an index to her character. In this instance, however, the
+fault had been carried to such an extreme that the address was almost
+illegible; indeed, Morris wondered that the letter had not been
+delayed. The stamps, too, were affixed anyhow, and the envelope barely
+closed.
+
+“Something has happened,” he thought to himself. Then he opened Mary’s
+letter. It was dated Tuesday, that is, two days before, and ran:
+
+“DEAREST,—My father is dead, my poor old father, and now I have nobody
+but you left in the world. Thank God, at the last he was without pain
+and, they thought, insensible; but I know he wasn’t, because he
+squeezed my hand. Some of his last words that could be understood were,
+‘Give my love to Morris.’ Oh! I feel as though my heart would break.
+After my mother’s death till you came into my life, he was everything
+to me—everything, everything. I can’t write any more.
+
+
+“Your loving
+“MARY.”
+
+
+“P.S. Don’t trouble to come out here. It is no good. He is to be buried
+to-morrow, and next day I am going ‘en retraite’ for a month, as I must
+have time to get over this—to accustom myself to not seeing him every
+morning when I come down to breakfast. You remember my French friend,
+Gabrielle d’Estrée? Well; she is a nun now, a sub-something or other in
+a convent near here where they take in people for a payment. Somehow
+she heard my father was dead, and came to see me, and offered to put me
+up at the convent, which has a beautiful large garden, for I have been
+there. So I said yes, for I shan’t feel lonely with her, and it will be
+a rest for a month. I shall write to you sometimes, and you needn’t be
+afraid, they won’t make me a Roman Catholic. Your father objected at
+first, but now he quite approves; indeed, I told him at last that I
+meant to go whether he approved or not. It seems it doesn’t matter from
+a business point of view, as you and he are left executors of my
+father’s will. When the month is up I will come to England, and we will
+settle about getting married. This is the address of the convent as
+nearly as I can remember it. Letters will reach me there.”
+
+
+Morris laid down the sheet with a sad heart, for he had been truly
+attached to his uncle Porson, whose simple virtues he understood and
+appreciated. Then he opened his father’s letter, which began in an
+imposing manner:
+
+“MY DEAR SON (usually he called him Morris),—It is with the deepest
+grief that I must tell you that poor John Porson, your uncle, passed
+away this morning about ten o’clock. I was present at the time, and did
+my best to soothe his last moments with such consolations as can be
+offered by a relative who is not a clergyman. I wished to wire the sad
+event to you, but Mary, in whom natural grief develops a self-will that
+perhaps is also natural, peremptorily refused to allow it, alleging
+that it was useless to alarm you and waste money on telegrams (how like
+a woman to think of money at such a moment) when it was quite
+impossible that you could arrive here in time for the funeral (for he
+wouldn’t be brought home), which, under these queer foreign
+regulations, must take place to-morrow. Also she announced, to my
+surprise, and, I must admit, somewhat to my pain, that she intended to
+immure herself for a month in a convent, after the fashion of the Roman
+faith, so that it was no use your coming, as men are not admitted into
+these places. It never seems to have occurred to her that under this
+blow I should have liked the consolation of her presence, or that I
+might wish to see you, my son. Still, you must not think too much of
+all this, although I have felt bound to bring it to your notice, since
+women under such circumstances are naturally emotional, rebellious
+against the decrees of Providence, and consequently somewhat selfish.
+
+“To turn to another subject. I am glad to be able to inform you—you
+will please accept this as an official notice of the fact—that on
+reading a copy of your uncle’s will, which by his directions was handed
+to me after his death, I find that he has died much better off even
+than I expected. The net personalty will amount to quite £100,000, and
+there is large realty, of which at present I do not know the value. All
+this is left to Mary with the fullest possible powers of disposal. You
+and I are appointed executors with a complimentary legacy of £500 to
+you, and but £100 to me. However, the testator ‘in consideration of the
+forthcoming marriage between his son Morris and my daughter Mary,
+remits all debts and obligations that may be due to his estate by the
+said Richard Monk, Lieutenant-Colonel, Companion of the Bath, and an
+executor of this will.’ This amounts to something, of course, but I
+will not trouble you with details at the moment.
+
+“After all, now that I come to think of it, it is as well that you
+should not leave home at present, as there will be plenty of executor’s
+business to keep you on the spot. No doubt you will hear from your late
+uncle’s lawyers, Thomas and Thomas, and as soon as you do so you had
+better go over to Seaview and take formal possession of it and its
+contents as an executor of the will. I have no time to write more at
+present, as the undertaker is waiting to see me about the last
+arrangements for the interment, which takes place at the English
+cemetery here. The poor man has gone, but at least we may reflect that
+he can be no more troubled by sickness, etc., and it is a consolation
+to know that he has made arrangements so eminently proper under the
+circumstances.
+
+“Your affectionate father,
+“RICHARD MONK.
+
+
+“P.S. I shall remain here for a little while so as to be near Mary in
+case she wishes to see me, and afterwards work homewards via Paris. I
+expect to turn up at the Abbey in a fortnight’s time or so.”
+
+“Quite in his best style,” reflected Morris to himself. “‘Remits all
+debts and obligations that may be due to his estate by the said Richard
+Monk.’ I should be surprised if they don’t amount to a good lot. No
+wonder my father is going to return via Paris; he must feel quite rich
+again.”
+
+Then he sat down to write to Mary.
+
+Under the pressure of this sudden blow—for the fact that Mr. Porson had
+been for some time in failing health, and the knowledge that his life
+might terminate at any time, did not seem to make it less sudden—a
+cloud of depression settled on the Abbey household. Before dinner
+Morris visited Mr. Fregelius, and told him of what had happened;
+whereon that pious and kindly, but somewhat inefficient man, bestowed
+upon him a well-meant lecture of consolation. Appreciating his motives,
+Morris thanked him sincerely, and was rising to depart, when the
+clergyman added:
+
+“It is most grievous to me, Mr. Monk, that in these sad hours of
+mourning you should be forced to occupy your mind with the details of
+an hospitality which has been forced upon you by circumstances. For the
+present I fear this cannot be altered——”
+
+“I do not wish it altered,” interrupted Morris.
+
+“It is indeed kind of you to say so, but I am happy to state the doctor
+tells me if I continue to progress as well as at present, I shall be
+able to leave your roof——”
+
+“My father’s roof,” broke in Morris again.
+
+“I beg pardon—your father’s roof—in about a fortnight.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear it, sir; and please clear your mind of the idea
+that you have ceased to be welcome. Your presence and that of Miss
+Fregelius will lessen, not increase, my trouble. I should be lonely in
+this great place with no company but that of my own thoughts.”
+
+“I am glad to hear you say so. Whether you feel it or not you are kind,
+very kind.”
+
+And so for the while they parted. When she came in that afternoon, Mr.
+Fregelius told Stella the news; but, as it happened, she did not see
+Morris until she met him at dinner time.
+
+“You have heard?” he asked.
+
+“Oh, yes,” she answered; “and I am sorry, so sorry. I do not know what
+more to say.”
+
+“There is nothing to be said,” answered Morris; “my poor uncle had
+lived out his life—he was sixty-eight, you know, and there is an end.”
+
+“Were you fond of him? Forgive me for asking, but people are not always
+fond—really fond—of those who happen to be their relations.”
+
+“Yes, I was very fond of him. He was a good man, though simple and
+self-made; very kind to everybody; especially to myself.”
+
+“Then do not grieve for him, his pains are over, and some day you will
+meet him again, will you not?”
+
+“I suppose so; but in the presence of death faith falters.”
+
+“I know; but I think that is when it should be strongest and clearest,
+that is when we should feel that whatever else is unreal and false,
+this is certain and true.”
+
+Morris bowed his head in assent, and there was silence for a while.
+
+“I am afraid that Miss Porson must feel this very much,” Stella said
+presently.
+
+“Yes, she seems quite crushed. She was his only living child, you
+know.”
+
+“Are you not going to join her?”
+
+“No, I cannot; she has gone into a convent for a month, near Beaulieu,
+and I am afraid the Sisters would not let me through their gates.”
+
+“Is she a Catholic?”
+
+“Not at all, but an old friend of hers holds some high position in the
+place, and she has taken a fancy to be quiet there for a while.”
+
+“It is very natural,” answered Stella, and nothing more was said upon
+the subject.
+
+Stella neither played the violin nor sang that night, nor, indeed,
+again while she remained alone with Morris at the Abbey. Both of them
+felt that under the circumstances this form of pleasure would be out of
+place, if not unfeeling, and it was never suggested. For the rest,
+however, their life went on as usual. On two or three occasions when
+the weather was suitable some further experiments were carried out with
+the aerophone, but on most days Stella was engaged in preparing the
+Rectory, a square, red-brick house, dating from the time of George
+III., to receive them as soon as her father could be moved. Very
+fortunately, as has been said, their journey in the steamer Trondhjem
+had been decided upon so hurriedly that there was no time to allow them
+to ship their heavy baggage and furniture, which were left to follow,
+and thus escaped destruction. Now at length these had arrived, and the
+unpacking and arrangement gave her constant thought and occupation, in
+which Morris occasionally assisted.
+
+One evening, indeed, he stayed in the Rectory with her, helping to hang
+some pictures till about half-past six o’clock, when they started for
+the Abbey. As it chanced, a heavy gale was blowing that night, one of
+the furious winter storms which are common on this coast, and its worst
+gusts beat upon Stella so fiercely that she could scarcely stand, and
+was glad to accept the support of Morris’s arm. As they struggled along
+the high road thus, a particularly savage blast tore the hood of
+Stella’s ulster from her head, whereupon, leaning over her in such a
+position that his face was necessarily quite close to her own, with
+some difficulty he managed to replace the hood.
+
+It was while Morris was so engaged that a dog-cart, which because of
+the roar of the wind he did not hear, and because of his position he
+could not see until it was almost passing them, came slowly down the
+road.
+
+Then catching the gleam of the lamps he looked up and started back,
+thinking that they were being run into, to perceive that the occupants
+of the dog-cart were Stephen and Eliza Layard.
+
+At the same moment Stephen recognised them, as indeed he could scarcely
+help doing with the light of the powerful lamp shining full upon their
+faces. He shouted something to his sister, who also stared coldly at
+the pair. Then a kind of fury seemed to seize the little man; at any
+rate, he shook his clenched fist in a menacing fashion, and brought
+down the whip with a savage cut upon the horse. As the animal sprang
+forward, moreover, Morris could almost have sworn that he heard the
+words “kissing her,” spoken in Stephen’s voice, followed by a laugh
+from Eliza.
+
+Then the dog-cart vanished into the darkness, and the incident was
+closed.
+
+For a moment Morris stood angry and astonished, but reflecting that in
+this wind his ears might have deceived him, and that, at any rate,
+Stella had heard nothing through her thick frieze hood, he once more
+offered his arm and walked forward.
+
+The next day was Sunday, when, as usual, he escorted Stella to church.
+The Layards were there also, but he noticed that, somewhat
+ostentatiously, they hurried from the building immediately on the
+conclusion of the service, and it struck him that this demonstration
+might have some meaning. Eliza, whom he afterwards observed, engaged
+apparently in eager conversation with a knot of people on the roadway,
+was, as he knew well, no friend to him, for reasons which he could
+guess. Nor, as he had heard from various quarters, was she any friend
+of Stella Fregelius, any more than she had been to Jane Rose. It struck
+him that even now she might be employed in sowing scandal about them
+both, and for Stella’s sake the thought made him furious. But even if
+it were so he did not see what he could do; therefore he tried to think
+he was mistaken, and to dismiss the matter from his mind.
+
+Colonel Monk had written to say that he was coming home on the
+Wednesday, but he did not, in fact, put in an appearance till the
+half-past six train on the following Saturday evening, when he arrived
+beautifully dressed in the most irreproachable black, and in a very
+good temper.
+
+“Ah, Morris, old fellow,” he said, “I am very pleased to see you again.
+After all, there is no place like home, and at my time of life nothing
+to equal quiet. I can’t tell you how sick I got of that French hole. If
+it hadn’t been for Mary, and my old friend, Lady Rawlins, who, as
+usual, was in trouble with that wretched husband of hers—he is an
+imbecile now, you know—I should have been back long before. Well, how
+are you getting on?”
+
+“Oh, pretty well, thank you, father,” Morris answered, in that rather
+restrained voice which was natural to him when conversing with his
+parent. “I think, I really think I have nearly perfected my aerophone.”
+
+“Have you? Well, then, I hope you will make something out of it after
+all these years; not that it much matters now, however,” he added
+contentedly. “By the way, that reminds me, how are our two guests, the
+new parson and his daughter? That was a queer story about your finding
+her on the wreck. Are they still here?”
+
+“Yes; but the old gentleman is out of bed now, and he expects to be
+able to move into the Rectory on Monday.”
+
+“Does he? Well, they must have given you some company while you were
+alone. There is no time like the present. I will go up and see him
+before I dress for dinner.”
+
+Accordingly Morris conducted his father to the Abbot’s chamber, and
+introduced him to the clergyman. Mr. Fregelius was seated in his
+arm-chair, with a crutch by his side, and on learning who his visitor
+was, made a futile effort to rise.
+
+“Pray, pray, sir,” said the Colonel, “keep seated, or you will
+certainly hurt your leg again.”
+
+“When I should be obliged to inflict myself upon you for another five
+or six weeks,” replied Mr. Fregelius.
+
+“In that case, sir,” said the Colonel, with his most courteous bow,
+“and for that reason only I should consider the accident fortunate,” by
+these happy words making of his guest a devoted friend for ever.
+
+“I don’t know how to thank you; I really don’t know how to thank you.”
+
+“Then pray, Mr. Fregelius, leave the thanks unspoken. What would you
+have had us—or, rather, my son—do? Turn a senseless, shattered man from
+his door, and that man his future spiritual pastor and master?”
+
+“But there was more. He, Mr. Monk, I mean, saved my daughter Stella’s
+life. You know, a block or a spar fell on me immediately after the ship
+struck. Then those cowardly dogs of sailors, thinking that she must
+founder instantly, threw me into the boat and rowed away, leaving her
+to her fate in the cabin; whereon your son, acting on some words which
+I spoke in my delirium, sailed out alone at night and rescued her.”
+
+“Yes, I heard something, but Morris is not too communicative. The odd
+thing about the whole affair, so far as I can gather, is that he should
+have discovered that there was anybody left on board. But he is a
+curious fellow, Morris; those things which one would expect him to know
+he never does know; and the things that nobody else has ever heard of
+he seems to have at his fingers’ ends by instinct, or second sight, or
+something. Well, it has all turned out for the best, hasn’t it?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” answered Mr. Fregelius, glancing at his
+injured leg. “At any rate, we are both alive and have not lost many of
+our belongings.”
+
+“Quite so; and under the circumstances you should be uncommonly
+thankful. But I need not tell a parson that. Well, I can only say that
+I am delighted to have such a good opportunity of making your
+acquaintance, which I am sure will lead to our pulling together in
+parish affairs like a pair of matched horses. Now I must go and dress.
+But I tell you what, I’ll come and smoke a cigar with you afterwards,
+and put you au fait with all our various concerns. You’ll find them a
+nice lot in this parish, I can tell you, a nice lot. Old Tomley just
+gave them up as a bad job.”
+
+“I hope I shan’t do that,” replied Mr. Fregelius, after his retreating
+form.
+
+The Colonel was down to dinner first, and standing warming himself at
+the library fire when Stella, once more in honour of his arrival
+arrayed in her best dress, entered the room. The Colonel put up his
+eyeglass and looked at her as she came down its length.
+
+“By Jove!” he thought to himself, “I didn’t know that the clergyman’s
+daughter was like this; nobody ever said so. After all, that fellow
+Morris can’t be half such a fool as he looks, for he kept it dark.”
+Then he stepped forward with outstretched hand.
+
+“You must allow me to introduce myself, Miss Fregelius,” he said with
+an old-fashioned and courtly bow, “and to explain that I have the
+honour to be my son’s father.”
+
+She bowed and answered: “Yes, I think I should have known that from the
+likeness.”
+
+“Hum!” said the Colonel. “Even at my age I am not certain that I am
+altogether flattered. Morris is an excellent fellow, and very clever at
+electrical machines; but I have never considered him remarkable for
+personal beauty—not exactly an Adonis, or an Apollo, or a Narcissus,
+you know.”
+
+“I should doubt whether any of them had such a nice face,” replied
+Stella with a smile.
+
+“My word! Now, that is what I call a compliment worth having. But I
+hear the gentleman himself coming. Shall I repeat it to him?”
+
+“No, please don’t, Colonel Monk. I did not mean it for compliment, only
+for an answer.”
+
+“Your wish is a command; but may I make an exception in favour of Miss
+Porson, who prospectively owns the nice face in question? She would be
+delighted to know it so highly rated;” and he glanced at her sharply,
+the look of a man of the world who is trying to read a woman’s heart.
+
+“By all means,” answered Stella, in an indifferent voice, but
+recognising in the Colonel one who, as friend or foe, must be taken
+into account. Then Morris came in, and they went to dinner.
+
+Here also Colonel Monk was very pleasant. He made Stella tell the story
+of the shipwreck and of her rescue, and generally tried to draw her out
+in every possible way. But all the while he was watching and taking
+note of many things. Before they had been together for five minutes he
+observed that this couple, his son and their visitor, were on terms of
+extreme intimacy—intimacy so extreme and genuine that in two instances,
+at least, each anticipated what the other was going to say, without
+waiting for any words to be spoken. Thus Stella deliberately answered a
+question that Morris had not put, and he accepted the answer and
+continued the argument quite as a matter of course. Also, they seemed
+mysteriously to understand each other’s wants, and, worst of all, he
+noted that when speaking they never addressed each other by name.
+Evidently just then each of them had but one “you” in the world.
+
+Now, the Colonel had not passed through very varied experiences and
+studied many sides and conditions of life for nothing; indeed, he would
+himself explain that he was able to see as far into a brick wall as
+other folk.
+
+The upshot of all this was that first he thought Morris a very lucky
+fellow to be an object of undoubted admiration to those beautiful eyes.
+(It may be explained that the Colonel throughout life had been an
+advocate of taking such goods as the gods provided; something of a
+worshipper, too, at the shrine of lovely Thais.) His second reflection
+was that under all the circumstances it seemed quite time that he
+returned home to look after him.
+
+“Now, Miss Fregelius,” he said, as she rose to leave the table, “when
+Morris and I have had a glass of wine, and ten minutes to chat over
+matters connected with his poor uncle’s death, I am going to ask you to
+do me a favour before I go up to smoke a cigar with your father. It is
+that you will play me a tune on the violin and sing me a song.”
+
+“Did Mr. Monk tell you that I played and sang?” she asked.
+
+“No, he did not. Indeed, Mr. Monk has told me nothing whatsoever about
+you. His, as you may have observed, is not a very communicative nature.
+The information came from a much less interesting, though, for aught I
+know, from a more impartial source—the fat page-boy, Thomas, who is
+first tenor in the Wesleyan chapel, and therefore imagines that he
+understands music.”
+
+“But how could Thomas——” began Morris, when his father cut him short
+and answered:
+
+“Oh, I’ll tell you, quite simply. I had it from the interesting youth’s
+own lips as he unpacked my clothes. It seems that the day before the
+news of your uncle’s death reached this place, Thomas was aroused from
+his slumbers by hearing what he was pleased to call ‘hangels a-’arping
+and singing.’ As soon as he convinced himself that he still lingered on
+the earth, drawn by the sweetness of the sounds, ‘just in his jacket
+and breeches,’ he followed them, until he was sure that they proceeded
+from your workshop, the chapel.
+
+“Now, as you know, on the upstair passage there still is that queer
+slit through which the old abbots used to watch the monks at their
+devotions. Finding the shutter unlocked, the astute Thomas followed
+their example, as well as he could, for he says there was no light in
+the chapel except that of the fire, by which presently he made out your
+figure, Miss Fregelius, sometimes playing the violin, and sometimes
+singing, and that of Morris—again I must quote—‘a-sitting in a chair by
+the fire with his ‘ands at the back of ‘is ‘ead, a-staring at the floor
+and rocking ‘imself as though he felt right down bad.’ No, don’t
+interrupt me, Morris; I must tell my story. It’s very amusing.
+
+“Well, Miss Fregelius, he says—and, mind you, this is a great
+compliment—that you sang and played till he felt as though he would cry
+when at last you sank down quite exhausted in a chair. Then, suddenly
+realising that he was very cold, and hearing the stable clock strike
+two, he went back to bed, and that’s the end of the tale. Now you will
+understand why I have asked you this favour. I don’t see why Morris and
+Thomas should keep it all to themselves.”
+
+“I shall be delighted,” answered Stella, who, although her cheeks were
+burning, and she knew that the merciless Colonel was taking note of the
+fact, on the whole had gone through the ordeal remarkably well. Then
+she left the room.
+
+As soon as the door closed Morris turned upon his father angrily.
+
+“Oh! my dear boy,” the Colonel said, “please do not begin to explain. I
+know it’s all perfectly right, and there is nothing to explain. Why
+shouldn’t you get an uncommonly pretty girl with a good voice to sing
+to you—while you are still in a position to listen? But if you care to
+take my advice, next time you will see that the shutter of that
+hagioscope, or whatever they call it, is locked, as such elevated
+delights ‘à deux’ are apt to be misinterpreted by the vulgar. And now,
+there’s enough of this chaff and nonsense. I want to speak to you about
+the executorship and matters connected with the property generally.”
+
+Half an hour later, when the Colonel appeared in the drawing-room, the
+violin was fetched, and Stella played it and sang afterwards to a
+piano-forte accompaniment. The performance was not of the same
+standard, by any means, as that which had delighted Thomas, for Stella
+did not feel the surroundings quite propitious. Still, with her voice
+and touch she could not fail, and the result was that before she had
+done the Colonel grew truly enthusiastic.
+
+“I know a little of music,” he said, “and I have heard most of the best
+singers and violinists during the last forty years; but in the face of
+all those memories I hope you will allow me to congratulate you, Miss
+Fregelius. There are some notes in your voice which really reduce me to
+the condition of peeping Thomas, and, hardened old fellow that I am,
+almost make me feel inclined to cry.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THREE INTERVIEWS
+
+
+The next day was a Sunday, and the Colonel went to church, wearing a
+hat-band four inches deep. Morris, however, declined to accompany him,
+saying that he had a letter to write to Mary; whereon his father, who
+at first was inclined to be vexed, replied that he could not be better
+employed, and that he was to give her his love. Then he asked if Miss
+Fregelius was coming, but somewhat to his disappointment, was informed
+that she wished to stay with her father.
+
+“I wonder,” thought the Colonel to himself as he strolled to the
+church, now and again acknowledging greetings or stopping to chat with
+one of the villagers—“I wonder if they are going to have a little
+sacred music together in the chapel. If so, upon my soul, I should like
+to make the congregation. And that pious fellow Morris, too—the
+blameless Morris—to go philandering about in this fashion. I hope it
+won’t come to Mary’s ears; but if it does, luckily, with all her
+temper, she is a sensible woman, and knows that even Jove nods at
+times.”
+
+After the service the Colonel spoke to various friends, accepted their
+condolences upon the death of Mr. Porson, and finally walked down the
+road with Eliza Layard.
+
+“You must have found that all sorts of strange things have happened at
+the Abbey since you have been away, Colonel Monk,” she said presently
+in a sprightly voice.
+
+“Well, yes; at least I don’t know. I understand that Morris has
+improved that blessed apparatus of his, and the new parson and his
+daughter have floated to our doors like driftwood. By the way, have you
+seen Miss Fregelius?”
+
+“Seen her? Yes, I have seen her.”
+
+“She is a wonderfully captivating girl, isn’t she? So unusual, with
+those great eyes of hers that seem to vary with the light——”
+
+“Like a cat’s,” snapped Eliza.
+
+“The light within—I was going to say.”
+
+“Oh! I thought you meant the light without. Well, she may be
+fascinating—to men, but as I am only a woman, I cannot be expected to
+appreciate that. You see we look more to other things.”
+
+“Ah. Well, so far as I am a judge she seemed to me to be pretty well
+set up in them also. She has a marvellous voice, is certainly a
+first-class violinist, and I should say extremely well-read, especially
+in Norse literature.”
+
+“Oh! I daresay she is a genius as well as a beauty.”
+
+“I gather,” said the Colonel with a smile, “that you do not like Miss
+Fregelius. As my acquaintance with her is limited, would you think me
+rude if I asked why?”
+
+“How can I be expected to like her, seeing——” and she paused.
+
+“Seeing what, Miss Layard?”
+
+“What, haven’t you heard? I thought it was common property.”
+
+He shook his head. “I have heard nothing. Go on, pray, this is quite
+interesting.”
+
+“That she led on that silly brother of mine until he proposed to
+her—yes, proposed to her!—and then refused him. Stephen has been like a
+crazy creature ever since, moaning, and groaning, and moping till I
+think that he will go off his head, instead of returning thanks to
+Providence for a merciful escape.”
+
+The Colonel set his lips as though to whistle, then checked himself.
+
+“Under the circumstances, presuming them to be accurately stated, I am
+not prepared to say who is to be congratulated or who should thank
+Providence. These things are so individual, are they not? But if one
+thing is clear, whatever else she is or is not, Miss Fregelius cannot
+be a fortune-hunter, although she must want money.”
+
+“She may want other things more.”
+
+“Perhaps. But I am very stupid, I am afraid I do not understand.”
+
+“Men, for instance,” suggested Eliza.
+
+“Dear me! that sounds almost carnivorous. I am afraid that there are
+not many about here to satisfy her appetite. Your brother, Morris, the
+curate at Morton, and myself, if at my age I may creep into that
+honourable company, are the only single creatures within four miles,
+and from these Stephen and Morris must apparently be eliminated.”
+
+“Why should Morris be eliminated?”
+
+“A reason may occur to you.”
+
+“Do you mean because he is engaged? What on earth does that matter?”
+
+“Nothing—in the East—but, rightly or wrongly, we have decided upon a
+monogamous system; a man can’t marry two wives, Miss Layard.”
+
+“But he can throw over one girl to marry another.”
+
+“Do you suggest that Morris is contemplating this experiment?”
+
+“I? I suggest nothing; all I know is——”
+
+“Well, now, what do you know?”
+
+“If you wish me to tell you, as perhaps I ought, I know this, Colonel
+Monk, that the other night, when I was driving along the Rectory road,
+I saw your son, Mr. Monk, kissing this wonderful Miss Fregelius; that
+is all, and Stephen saw it also, you ask him.”
+
+“Thank you; I think I would rather not. But what an odd place for him
+to choose for this interchange of early Christian courtesies! Also—if
+you are not mistaken—how well it illustrates that line in the hymn this
+morning:
+
+“‘How many a spot defiles the robe that wraps an earthly saint.’
+
+
+Such adventures seem scarcely in Morris’s line, and I should have
+thought that even an inexperienced saint would have been more
+discreet.”
+
+“Men always jest at serious things,” said Eliza severely.
+
+“Which do you mean—the saints or the kissing? Both are serious enough,
+but the two in combination——”
+
+“Don’t you believe me?” asked Eliza.
+
+“Of course. But could you give me a few details?”
+
+Eliza could and did—with amplifications.
+
+“Now, what do you say, Colonel Monk?” she asked triumphantly.
+
+“I say that I think you have made an awkward mistake, Miss Layard. It
+seems to me that all you saw is quite consistent with the theory that
+he was buttoning or arranging the young lady’s hood. I understand that
+the wind was very high that night.”
+
+Eliza started; this was a new and unpleasant interpretation which she
+hastened to repudiate. “Arranging her hood, indeed——”
+
+“When he might have been kissing her? You cannot understand such
+moderation. Still, it is possible, and he ought to have the benefit of
+the doubt. Witnesses to character would be valuable in such a case, and
+his—not to mention the lady’s—is curiously immaculate.”
+
+“Of course you are entitled to your own opinion, but I have mine.”
+
+Suddenly the Colonel changed his bantering, satirical tone, and became
+stern and withering.
+
+“Miss Layard,” he said, “does it occur to you that on evidence which
+would not suffice to convict a bicyclist of riding on a footpath, you
+are circulating a scandal of which the issue might be very grave to
+both the parties concerned?”
+
+“I am not circulating anything. I was telling you privately;” replied
+Eliza, still trying to be bold.
+
+“I am glad to hear it. I understand that neither you nor your brother
+have spoken of this extraordinary tale, and I am quite certain that you
+will not speak of it in the future.”
+
+“I cannot answer for my brother,” she said sulkily.
+
+“No, but in his own interest and in yours I trust that you will make
+him understand that if I hear a word of this I shall hold him to
+account. Also, that his propagation of such a slander will react upon
+you, who were with him.”
+
+“How?” asked Eliza, now thoroughly frightened, for when he chose the
+Colonel could be very crushing.
+
+“Thus: Your brother’s evidence is that of an interested person which no
+one will accept; and of yours, Miss Layard, it might be inferred that
+it was actuated by jealousy of a charming and quite innocent girl; or,
+perhaps, by other motives even worse, which I would rather you did not
+ask me to suggest.”
+
+Eliza did not ask him. She was too wise. As she knew well, when roused
+the Colonel was a man with a bitter tongue and a good memory.
+
+“I am sure I am the last person who would wish to do mischief,” she
+said in a humble voice.
+
+“Of course, I know that, I know that. Well, now we understand each
+other, so I must be turning home. Thank you so much for having been
+quite candid with me. Good morning, Miss Layard; remember me to
+Stephen.”
+
+“Phew!” reflected the Colonel to himself, “that battle is won—after a
+fashion—but just about forty-eight hours too late. By this time that
+vixen of a woman has put the story all over the place. Oh, Morris, you
+egregious ass, if you wanted to take to kissing like a schoolboy, why
+the deuce did you select the high road for the purpose? This must be
+put a stop to. I must take steps, and at once. They mustn’t be seen
+together again, or there will be trouble with Mary. But how to do it?
+how to do it? That is the question, and one to which I must find an
+answer within the next two hours. What a kettle of fish! What a pretty
+kettle of fish!”
+
+In due course, and after diligent search, he found the answer to this
+question.
+
+At lunch time the Colonel remarked casually that he had walked a little
+way with Miss Layard, who mentioned that she had seen them—i.e., his
+son and Miss Fregelius—struggling through the gale the other night.
+Then he watched the effect of this shot. Morris moved his chair and
+looked uncomfortable; clearly he was a most transparent sinner. But on
+Stella it took no effect.
+
+“As usual,” reflected the Colonel, “the lady has the most control. Or
+perhaps he tried to kiss her and she wouldn’t let him, and a
+consciousness of virtue gives her strength.”
+
+After luncheon the Colonel paid a visit to Mr. Fregelius, ostensibly to
+talk to him about the proposed restoration of the chancel, for which
+he, as holder of the great tithes, was jointly liable with the rector,
+a responsibility that, in the altered circumstances of the family, he
+now felt himself able to face. When this subject was exhausted, which
+did not take long, as Mr. Fregelius refused to express any positive
+opinion until he had inspected the church, the Colonel’s manner grew
+portentously solemn.
+
+“My dear sir,” he said, “there is another matter, a somewhat grave one,
+upon which, for both our sakes and the sakes of those immediately
+concerned, I feel bound to say a few words.”
+
+Mr. Fregelius, who was a timid man, looked very much alarmed. A
+conviction that the “grave matter” had something to do with Stella
+flashed into his mind, but all he said was:
+
+“I am afraid I don’t understand, Colonel Monk.”
+
+“No; indeed, how should you? Well, to come to the point, it has to do
+with that very charming daughter of yours and my son Morris.”
+
+“I feared as much,” groaned the clergyman.
+
+“Indeed! I thought you said you did not understand.”
+
+“No, but I guessed; wherever Stella goes things seem to happen.”
+
+“Exactly; well, things have happened here. To be brief, I mean that a
+lot of silly women have got up a scandal about them—no, scandal is too
+strong a word—gossip.”
+
+“What is alleged?” asked Mr. Fregelius faintly.
+
+“Well, that your daughter threw over that young ass, Stephen Layard,
+because—the story seems to me incredible, I admit—she had fallen
+violently in love with Morris. Further that she and the said Morris
+were seen embracing at night on the Rectory road, which I don’t
+believe, as the witnesses are Layard, who is prejudiced, and his
+sister, who is the most ill-bred, bitter, and disappointed woman in the
+county. Lastly, and this is no doubt true, that they are generally on
+terms of great intimacy, and we all know where that leads to between a
+man and woman—‘Plato, thy confounded fantasies,’ etc. You see, when
+people sit up singing to each other alone till two in the morning—I
+don’t mean that Morris sings, he has no more voice than a crow; he does
+the appreciative audience—well, other people will talk, won’t they?”
+
+“I suppose so, the world being what it is,” sighed Mr. Fregelius.
+
+“Exactly; the world being what it is, and men and women what they are,
+a most unregenerate lot and ‘au fond’ very primitive, as I daresay you
+may have observed.”
+
+“What is to be done?”
+
+“Well, under other circumstances, I should have said, Nothing at all
+except congratulate them most heartily, more especially my son. But in
+this case there are reasons which make such a course impossible. As you
+know, Morris is engaged to be married to my niece, Miss Porson, and it
+is a contract which, even if he wished it, honour would forbid him to
+break, for family as well as for personal reasons.”
+
+“Quite so, quite so; it is not to be thought of. But again I ask—What
+is to be done?”
+
+“Is that not rather a question for you to consider? I suggest that you
+had better speak to your daughter; just a hint, you know, just a hint.”
+
+“Upon my word, I’d rather not. Stella can be so—decided—at times, and
+we never seem quite to understand each other. I did speak to her the
+other day when Mr. Layard wished to marry her, a match I was naturally
+anxious for, but the results were not satisfactory.”
+
+“Still, I think you might try.”
+
+“Very well, I will try; and, Colonel Monk, I cannot tell you how
+grieved I am to have brought all this trouble on you.”
+
+“Not a bit,” answered the Colonel cheerfully. “I am an old student of
+human nature, and I rather enjoy it; it’s like watching the puppets on
+a stage. Only we mustn’t let the comedy grow into a tragedy.”
+
+“Ah! that’s what I am afraid of, some tragedy. Stella is a woman who
+takes things hard, and if any affection really has sprung up——”
+
+“——It will no doubt evaporate with the usual hysterics and morning
+headache. Bless me! I have known dozens of them, and felt some myself
+in my time—the headaches, I mean, not the other things. Don’t be
+alarmed if she gets angry, Mr. Fregelius, but just appeal to her
+reason; she will see the force of it afterwards.”
+
+An hour or so later the Colonel started for a walk on the beach to look
+at some damage which a high tide had done to the cliff. As he was
+nearing the Abbey steps on his return he saw the figure of a woman
+standing quite still upon the sands. An inspection through his eyeglass
+revealed that it was Stella, and instinct told him her errand.
+
+“This is rather awkward,” he thought, as he braced himself to battle,
+“especially as I like that girl and don’t want to hurt her feelings.
+Hullo! Miss Fregelius, are you taking the air? You should walk, or you
+will catch cold.”
+
+“No, Colonel Monk, I was waiting for you.”
+
+“Waiting for me? Me! This is indeed an honour, and one which age
+appreciates.”
+
+She waved aside his two-edged badinage. “You have been speaking to my
+father,” she said.
+
+Instantly the Colonel assumed a serious manner, not the most serious,
+such as he wore at funerals, but still one suited to a grave occasion.
+
+“Yes, I have.”
+
+“You remember all that you said?”
+
+“Certainly, Miss Fregelius; and I assume that for the purposes of this
+conversation it need not be repeated.”
+
+She bowed her head, and replied, “I have come to explain and to tell
+you three things. First, that all these stories are false except that
+about the singing. Secondly, that whoever is responsible for them has
+made it impossible that I should live in Monksland, so I am going to
+London to earn my own living there. And, thirdly, that I hope you will
+excuse my absence from dinner as I think the more I keep to myself
+until we go to-morrow, the better; though I reserve to myself the right
+to speak to Mr. Monk on this subject and to say good-bye to him.”
+
+“She _is_ taking it hard and she _is_ fond of him—deuced fond of him,
+poor girl,” thought the Colonel; but aloud he said, “My dear Miss
+Fregelius, I never believed the stories. As for the principal one,
+common sense rebels against it. All I said to your father was that
+there appears to be a lot of talk about the place, and, under the
+circumstances of my son’s engagement, that he might perhaps give you a
+friendly hint.”
+
+“Oh! indeed; he did not put it quite like that. He gave me to
+understand that you had told him—that I was—so—so much in love with Mr.
+Monk that on this account I had—rejected Mr. Layard.”
+
+“Please keep walking,” said the Colonel, “or you _really_ will catch
+cold.” Then suddenly he stopped, looked her sharply in the face, much
+as he had done to Eliza, and said, “Well, and are you not in love with
+him?”
+
+For a moment Stella stared at him indignantly. Then suddenly he saw a
+blush spread upon her face to be followed by an intense pallor, while
+the pupils of the lovely eyes enlarged themselves and grew soft. Next
+instant she put her hand to her heart, tottered on her feet, and had he
+not caught her would perhaps have fallen.
+
+“I do not think I need trouble you to answer my question, which,
+indeed, now that I think of it, was one I had no right to put,” he said
+as she recovered herself.
+
+“Oh, my God!” moaned Stella, wringing her hands; “I never knew it till
+this moment. You have brought it home to me; you, yes, you!” and she
+burst out weeping.
+
+“Here are the hysterics,” thought the Colonel, “and I am afraid that
+the headache will be bad to-morrow morning.”
+
+To her, however, he said very tenderly, “My dear girl, my dear girl,
+pray do not distress yourself. These little accidents will happen in
+the best regulated hearts, and believe me, you will get over it in a
+month or two.”
+
+“Accident!” she said. “It is no accident; it is Fate!—I see it all
+now—and I shall never get over it. However, that is my own affair, and
+I have no right to trouble you with my misfortunes.”
+
+“Oh! but you will indeed, and though you may think the advice hard, I
+will tell you the best way.”
+
+She looked up in inquiry.
+
+“Change your mind and marry Stephen Layard. He is not at all a bad
+fellow, and—there are obvious advantages.”
+
+This was the Colonel’s first really false move, as he himself felt
+before the last word had left his lips.
+
+“Colonel Monk,” she said, “because I am unfortunate is it any reason
+that you should insult me?”
+
+“Miss Fregelius, to my knowledge I have never insulted any woman; and
+certainly I should not wish to begin with one who has just honoured me
+with her confidence.”
+
+“Is it not an insult,” she answered with a sort of sob, “when a woman
+to her shame and sorrow has confessed—what I have—to bid her console
+herself by marriage with another man?”
+
+“Now that you put it thus, I confess that perhaps some minds might so
+interpret an intention which did not exist. It seemed to me that, after
+a while, in marriage you would most easily forget a trouble which my
+son so unworthily has brought on you.”
+
+“Don’t blame him for he does not deserve it. If anybody is to blame it
+is I; but in truth all those stories are false; we have neither of us
+done anything.”
+
+“Do not press the point, Miss Fregelius; I believe you.”
+
+“We have neither of us done anything,” she repeated; “and, what is
+more, if you had not interfered, I do not think that I should have
+found out the truth; or, at least, not yet—till I saw him married,
+perhaps, when it would have been no matter.”
+
+“When you see a man walking in his sleep you do your best to stop him,”
+said the Colonel.
+
+“And so cause him to fall over the precipice and be dashed to bits. Oh!
+you should have let me finish my journey. Then I should have come back
+to the bed that I have made to lie on, and waked to find myself alone,
+and nobody would have been hurt except myself who caused the evil.”
+
+The Colonel could not continue this branch of the conversation. Even to
+him, a hardened vessel, as he had defined himself, it was too painful.
+
+“You said you mean to earn a living in London. How?”
+
+“By my voice and violin, if one can sing and play with a sore heart. I
+have an old aunt, a sister of my father’s, who is a music mistress,
+with whom I daresay I can arrange to live, and who may be able to get
+me some introductions.”
+
+“I hope that I can help you there, and I will to the best of my
+ability; indeed, if necessary, I will go to town and see about things.
+Allow me to add this, Miss Fregelius, that I think you are doing a very
+brave thing, and, what is more, a very wise one; and I believe that
+before long we shall hear of you as the great new contralto.”
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. “It may be; I don’t care. Good-bye. By the
+way, I wish to see Mr. Monk once more before I go; it would be better
+for us all. I suppose that you don’t object to that, do you?”
+
+“Miss Fregelius, my son is a man advancing towards middle age. It is
+entirely a point for you and him to decide, and I will only say that I
+have every confidence in you.”
+
+“Thank you,” she answered, and turning, walked rapidly down the lonely
+beach till her figure melted into the gathering gloom of the winter’s
+night. Once, however, when she thought that she was out of eyeshot, he
+saw her stop with her face towards the vast and bitter sea, and saw
+also that she was wringing her hands in an agony of the uttermost
+despair.
+
+“She looks like a ghost,” said the Colonel aloud with a little shiver,
+“like a helpless, homeless ghost, with the world behind her and the
+infinite in front, and nothing to stand on but a patch of shifting
+sand, wet with her own tears.”
+
+When the Colonel grew thus figurative and poetical it may be surmised
+by anyone who has taken the trouble to study his mixed and somewhat
+worldly character that he was deeply moved. And he was moved; more so,
+indeed, than he had been since the death of his wife. Why? He would
+have found it hard to explain. On the face of it, the story was of a
+trivial order, and in some of its aspects rather absurd. Two young
+people who happened to be congenial, but one of whom was engaged,
+chance to be thrown together for a couple of months in a country house.
+Although there is some gossip, nothing at all occurs between them
+beyond a little perfectly natural flirtation. The young man’s father,
+hearing the gossip, speaks to the young lady in order that she may take
+steps to protect herself and his son against surmise and
+misinterpretation. Thereupon a sudden flood of light breaks upon her
+soul, by which she sees that she is really attached to the young man,
+and being a woman of unusual character, or perhaps absurdly averse to
+lying even upon such a subject, in answer to a question admits that
+this is so, and that she very properly intends to go away.
+
+Could anything be more commonplace, more in the natural order of
+events? Why, then, was he moved? Oh! it was that woman’s face and eyes.
+Old as he might be, he felt jealous of his son; jealous to think that
+for him such a woman could wear this countenance of wonderful and
+thrilling woe. What was there in Morris that it should have called
+forth this depth of passion undefiled? Now, if there were no Mary—but
+there was a Mary, it was folly to pursue such a line of thought.
+
+From sympathy for Stella, which was deep and genuine, to anger with his
+son proved to the Colonel an easy step. Morris was that worst of
+sinners, a hypocrite. Morris, being engaged to one woman, had taken
+advantage of her absence deliberately to involve the affections of
+another, or, at any rate, caused her considerable inconvenience. He was
+wroth with Morris, and what was more, before he grew an hour older he
+would let him have a piece of his mind.
+
+He found the sinner in his workshop, the chapel, making mathematical
+calculations, the very sight of which added to his father’s
+indignation. The man, he reflected to himself, who under these
+circumstances could indulge an abnormal talent for mathematics,
+especially on Sunday, must be a cold-blooded brute. He entered the
+place slamming the door behind him; and Morris looking up noted with
+alarm, for he hated rows, that there was war in his eye.
+
+“Won’t you take a chair, father?” he said.
+
+“No, thank you; I would rather say what I have to say standing.”
+
+“What is the matter?”
+
+“The matter is, sir, that I find that by your attentions you have made
+that poor girl, Miss Fregelius, while she was a guest in my house, the
+object of slander and scandal to every ill-natured gossip in the three
+parishes.”
+
+Morris’s quiet, thoughtful eyes flashed in an ominous and unusual
+manner.
+
+“If you were not my father,” he said, “I should ask you to change your
+tone in speaking to me on such a subject; but as things are I suppose
+that I must submit to it, unless you choose otherwise.”
+
+“The facts, Morris,” answered his father, “justify any language that I
+can use.”
+
+“Did you get these facts from Stephen Layard and Miss Layard? Ah! I
+guessed as much. Well, the story is a lie; I was merely arranging her
+hood which she could not do herself, as the wind forced her to use her
+hand to hold her dress down.”
+
+The thought of his own ingenuity in hitting on the right solution of
+the story mollified the Colonel not a little.
+
+“Pshaw,” he said, “I knew that. Do you suppose that I believed you fool
+enough to kiss a girl on the open road when you had every opportunity
+of kissing her at home? I know, too, that you have never kissed her at
+all; or, ostensibly at any rate, done anything that you shouldn’t do.”
+
+“What is my offence, then?” asked Morris.
+
+“Your offence is that you have got her talked about; that you have made
+her in love with you—don’t deny it; I have it from her own lips. That
+you have driven her out of this place to earn a living in London as
+best she may, and that, being yourself an engaged man”—here once more
+the Colonel drew a bow at a venture—“you are what is called in love
+with her yourself.”
+
+These two were easy victims to the skill of so experienced an archer.
+The shaft went home between the joints of his son’s harness, and Morris
+sank back in his chair and turned white. Generosity, or perhaps the
+fear of exciting more unpleasant consequences, prevented the Colonel
+from following up this head of his advantage.
+
+“There is more, a great deal more, behind,” he went on. “For instance,
+all this will probably come to Mary’s ears.”
+
+“Certainly it will; I shall tell her of it myself.”
+
+“Which will be tantamount to breaking your engagement. May I ask if
+that is your intention?”
+
+“No; but supposing that all you say were true, and that it _was_ my
+intention, what then?”
+
+“Then, sir, to my old-fashioned ideas you would be a dishonourable
+fellow, to cast away the woman who has only you to look to in the
+world, that you may put another woman who has taken your fancy in her
+place.”
+
+Morris bit his lip.
+
+“Still speaking on that supposition,” he replied, “would it not be more
+dishonourable to marry her; would it not be kinder, shameful as it may
+be, to tell her all the truth and let her seek some worthier man?”
+
+The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t split hairs,” he said, “or
+enter on an argument of sentimental casuistry. But I tell you this,
+Morris, although you are my only son, and the last of our name, that
+rather than do such a thing, under all the circumstances, it would be
+better that you should take a pistol and blow your brains out.”
+
+“Very probably,” answered Morris, “but would you mind telling me also
+what are the exact circumstances which would in your opinion so
+aggravate this particular case?”
+
+“You have a copy of your uncle Porson’s will in that drawer; give it
+me.”
+
+Morris obeyed, and his father searched for, and read the following
+sentence: “In consideration of the forthcoming marriage between his son
+Morris and my daughter Mary, the said testator remits all debts and
+obligations that may be due to his estate by the said Richard Monk,
+Lieutenant Colonel, Companion of the Bath, and an executor of this
+will.”
+
+“Well,” said Morris.
+
+“Well,” replied the Colonel coolly, “those debts in all amounted to
+£19,543. No wonder you seem astonished, but they have been accumulating
+for a score of years. There’s the fact, any way, so discussion is no
+use. Now do you understand? ‘In consideration of the forthcoming
+marriage,’ remember.”
+
+“I shall be rich some day; that machine you laugh at will make me rich;
+already I have been approached. I might repay this money.”
+
+“Yes, and you might not; such hopes and expectations have a way of
+coming to nothing. Besides, hang it all, Morris, you know that there is
+more than money in the question.”
+
+Morris hid his face in his hands for a moment; when he removed them it
+was ashen. “Yes,” he said, “things are unfortunate. You remember that
+you were very anxious that I should engage myself, and Mary was so good
+as to accept me. Perhaps, I cannot say, I should have done better to
+have waited till I felt some real impulse towards marriage. However,
+that is all gone by, and, father, you need not be in the least afraid;
+there is not the slightest fear that I shall attempt to do anything of
+which you would disapprove.”
+
+“I was sure you wouldn’t, old fellow,” answered the Colonel in a
+friendly tone, “not when you came to think. Matters seem to have got
+into a bit of a tangle, don’t they? Most unfortunate that charming
+young lady being brought to this house in such a fashion. Really, it
+looks like a spite of what she called Fate. However, I have no doubt
+that it will all straighten itself somehow. By the way, she told me
+that she should wish to see you once to say good-bye before she went.
+Don’t be vexed with me if, should she do so, I suggest to you to be
+very careful. Your position will be exceedingly painful and exceedingly
+dangerous, and in a moment all your fine resolutions may come to
+nothing; though I am sure that she does not wish any such thing, poor
+dear. Unless she really seeks this interview, I think, indeed, it would
+be best avoided.”
+
+Morris made no answer, and the Colonel went away somewhat weary and
+sorrowful. For once he had seen too much of his puppet-show.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+A MARRIAGE AND AFTER
+
+
+Stella did not appear at dinner that night, or at breakfast next day.
+In the course of the morning, growing impatient, for he had
+explanations to make, Morris sent her a note worded thus:
+
+“Can I see you?—M. M.”
+
+
+to which came the following answer:
+
+“Not to-day. Meet me to-morrow at the Dead Church at three
+o’clock.—STELLA.”
+
+
+It was the only letter that he ever received from her.
+
+That afternoon, December 23, Mr. Fregelius and his daughter moved to
+the Rectory in a fly that had been especially prepared to convey the
+invalid without shaking him. Morris did not witness their departure, as
+the Colonel, either by accident or design, had arranged to go with him
+on this day to inspect the new buildings which had been erected on the
+Abbey Farm. Nor, indeed, were the names of the departed guests so much
+as mentioned at dinner that night. The incident of their long stay at
+the Abbey, with all its curious complications, was closed, and both
+father and son, by tacit agreement, determined to avoid all reference
+to it; at any rate for the present.
+
+The Christmas Eve of that year will long be remembered in Monksland and
+all that stretch of coast as the day of the “great gale” which wrought
+so much damage on its shores. The winter’s dawn was of extraordinary
+beauty, for all the eastern sky might have been compared to one vast
+flower, with a heart of burnished gold, and sepals and petals of many
+coloured fires. Slowly from a central point it opened, slowly its
+splendours spread across the heavens; then suddenly it seemed to wither
+and die, till where it had been was nothing but masses of grey vapour
+that arose, gathered, and coalesced into an ashen pall hanging low
+above the surface of the ashen sea. The coastguard, watching the glass,
+hoisted their warning cone, although as yet there was no breath of
+wind, and old sailormen hanging about in knots on the cliff and beach
+went to haul up their boats as high as they could drag them, knowing
+that it would blow hard by night.
+
+About mid-day the sea began to be troubled, as though its waves were
+being pushed on by some force as yet unseen, and before two o’clock
+gusts of cold air from the nor’east travelled landwards off the ocean
+with a low moaning sound, which was very strange to hear.
+
+As Morris trudged along towards the Dead Church he noticed, as we do
+notice such things when our minds are much preoccupied and oppressed,
+that these gusts were coming quicker and quicker, although still
+separated from each other by periods of aerial calm. Then he remembered
+that a great gale had been prophesied in the weather reports, and
+thought to himself that they portended its arrival.
+
+He reached the church by the narrow spit of sand and shingle which
+still connected it with the shore, passed through the door in the rough
+brick wall, closing it behind him, and paused to look. Already under
+that heavy sky the light which struggled through the brine-encrusted
+eastern window was dim and grey. Presently, however, he discovered the
+figure of Stella seated in her accustomed place by the desolate-looking
+stone altar, whereon stood the box containing the aerophone that they
+had used in their experiments. She was dressed in her dark-coloured
+ulster, of which the hood was still drawn over her head, giving her the
+appearance of some cloaked nun, lingering, out of time and place, in
+the ruined habitations of her worship.
+
+As he advanced she rose and pushed back the hood, revealing the masses
+of her waving hair, to which it had served as a sole covering. In
+silence Stella stretched out her hand, and in silence Morris took it;
+for neither of them seemed to find any words. At length she spoke,
+fixing her sad eyes upon his face, and saying:
+
+“You understand that we meet to part. I am going to London to-morrow;
+my father has consented.”
+
+“That is Christmas Day,” he faltered.
+
+“Yes, but there is an early train, the same that runs on Sundays.”
+
+Then there was another pause.
+
+“I wish to ask your pardon,” he said, “for all the trouble that I have
+brought upon you.”
+
+She smiled. “I think it is I who should ask yours. You have heard of
+these stories?”
+
+“Yes, my father spoke to me; he told me of his conversation with you.”
+
+“All of it?”
+
+“I do not know; I suppose so,” and he hung his head.
+
+“Oh!” she broke out in a kind of cry, “if he told you all——”
+
+“You must not blame him,” he interrupted. “He was very angry with me.
+He considered that I had behaved badly to you, and everybody, and I do
+not think that he weighed his words.”
+
+“I am not angry. Now that I think of it, what does it matter? I cannot
+help things, and the truth will out.”
+
+“Yes,” he said, quite simply; “we love each other, so we may as well
+admit it before we part.”
+
+“Yes,” she echoed, without disturbance or surprise; “I know now—we love
+each other.”
+
+These were the first intimate words that ever passed between them;
+this, their declaration, unusual even in the long history of the
+passions of men and women, and not the less so because neither of them
+seemed to think its fashion strange.
+
+“It must always have been so,” said Morris.
+
+“Always,” she answered, “from the beginning; from the time you saved my
+life and we were together in the boat and—perhaps, who can say?—before.
+I can see it now, only until they put light into our minds we did not
+understand. I suppose that sooner or later we should have found it out,
+for having been brought together nothing could ever have really kept us
+asunder.”
+
+“Nothing but death,” he answered heavily.
+
+“That is your old error, the error of a lack of faith,” she replied,
+with one of her bright smiles. “Death will unite us beyond the
+possibility of parting. I pray God that it may come quickly—to me, not
+to you. You have your life to lead; mine is finished. I do not mean the
+life of my body, but the real life, that within.”
+
+“I think that you are right; I grow sure of it. But here there is
+nothing to be done.”
+
+“Of course,” she answered eagerly; “nothing. Do you suppose that I
+wished to suggest such a treachery?”
+
+“No, you are too pure and good.”
+
+“Good I am not—who is?—but I believe that I am pure.”
+
+“It is bitter,” groaned Morris.
+
+“Why so? My heart aches, and yet through the pain I rejoice, because I
+know that it is well with us. Had you not loved me, then it would have
+been bitter. The rest is little. What does it matter when and how and
+where it comes about? To-day we part—for ever in the flesh. You will
+not look upon this mortal face of mine again.”
+
+“Why do you say so?”
+
+“Because I feel that it is true.”
+
+He glanced up hastily, and she answered the question in his eyes.
+
+“No—indeed—not that—I never thought of such a thing. I think it a
+crime. We are bid to endure the burden of our day. I shall go on
+weaving my web and painting my picture till, soon or late, God says,
+‘Hold,’ and then I shall die gladly, yes, very gladly, because the real
+beginning is at hand.”
+
+“Oh! that I had your perfect faith,” groaned Morris.
+
+“Then, if you love me, learn it from me. Should I, of all people, tell
+you what is not true? It is the truth—I swear it is the truth. I am not
+deceived. I know, I know, I _know_.”
+
+“What do you know—about us?”
+
+“That, when it is over, we shall meet again where there is no marriage,
+where there is nothing gross, where love perfect and immortal reigns
+and passion is forgotten. There that we love each other will make no
+heart sore, not even hers whom here, perhaps, we have wronged; there
+will be no jealousies, since each and all, themselves happy in their
+own way and according to their own destinies, will rejoice in the
+happiness of others. There, too, our life will be one life, our work
+one work, our thought one thought—nothing more shall separate us at all
+in that place where there is no change or shadow of turning.
+Therefore,” and she clasped her hands and looked upwards, her face
+shining like a saint’s, although the tears ran down it, “therefore, ‘O
+Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’”
+
+“You talk like one upon the verge of it, who hears the beating of
+Death’s wings. It frightens me, Stella.”
+
+“I know nothing of that; it may be to-night, or fifty years hence—we
+are always on the verge, and those Wings I have heard from childhood.
+Fifty, even seventy years, and after them—all the Infinite; one tiny
+grain of sand compared to the bed of the great sea, that sea from which
+it was washed at dawn to be blown back again at nightfall.”
+
+“But the dead forget—in that land all things are forgotten. Were you to
+die I should call to you and you would not answer; and when my time
+came, I might look for you and never find you.”
+
+“How dare you say it? If I die, search, and you shall see. No; do _not_
+search, wait. At your death I will be with you.”
+
+“Whatever happens in life or death—here or hereafter—swear that you
+will not forget me, and that you will love me only. Swear it, Stella.”
+
+“Come to this altar,” she said, when she had thought a moment, “and
+give me your hand—so. Now, before my Maker and the Presences who
+surround us, I marry you, Morris Monk. Not in the flesh—with your flesh
+I have nothing to do—but in the spirit. I take your soul to mine, I
+give my soul to yours; yours it was from its birth’s day, yours it is,
+and when it ceases to be yours, let it perish everlastingly.”
+
+“So be it to both of us, for ever and for ever,” he answered.
+
+This, then, was their marriage, and as they walked hand in hand away
+from the ancient altar, which surely had never seen so strange a rite,
+there returned to Morris an idle fantasy which had entered his mind at
+this very spot when they landed one morning half-frozen after that
+night in the open boat. But he said nothing of it; for with the memory
+came a recollection of certain wandering words which that same day fell
+from Stella’s lips, words at the thought of which his spirit thrilled
+and his flesh shuddered. What if she were near it, or he were near it,
+or both of them? What if this solemn ceremony of marriage mocked, yet
+made divine, had taken place upon the very threshold of its immortal
+consummation? She read his thought and answered:
+
+“Remember always, far and near, it is the same thing; time is nothing;
+this oath of ours cannot be touched by time or earthly change.”
+
+“I will remember,” he answered.
+
+What more did they say? He never could be sure, nor does it matter, for
+what is written bears its gist.
+
+“Go away first,” she said presently; “I promised your father that I
+would bring no further trouble on you, so we must not be seen together.
+Go now, for the gale is rising fast and the darkness grows.”
+
+“This is hard to bear,” he muttered, setting his teeth. “Are you sure
+that we shall not meet again in after years?”
+
+“Sure. You look your last upon me, on the earthly Stella whom you know
+and love.”
+
+“It must be done,” he said.
+
+“It must be done,” she echoed. “Good-bye, husband, till that appointed
+hour of meeting when I may call you so without shame,” and she held out
+her hand.
+
+He took and pressed it; speak he could not. Then, like a man stricken
+in years, he passed down the church with bent head and shambling feet.
+At the door he turned to look at her. She was standing erect and proud
+as a conqueror, her hand resting upon the altar. Even at that distance
+their eyes met, and in hers, lit with a wild and sudden ray from the
+sinking sun, he could see a strange light shine. Then he went out of
+the door and dragged it to behind him, to battle his way homeward
+through the roaring gale that stung and buffeted him like all the
+gathered spites and hammerings of Destiny.
+
+This, then, was their parting, a parting pure and stern and high,
+unsolaced by one soft word, unsweetened by a single kiss. Yet it seems
+fitting that those who hope to meet in the light of the spirit should
+make their last farewells on earth beneath such solemn shadows.
+
+And Stella? After all she was but a woman, a woman with a very human
+heart. She knew the truth indeed, to whom it was given to see before
+the due determined time of vision, but still she was troubled with that
+human heart, and weighed down by the flesh over which she triumphed.
+Now that he was gone, pride and strength seemed both to leave her, and
+with a low cry, like the cry of a wounded sea-bird, she cast herself
+down there upon the cold stones before the altar, and wept till her
+senses left her.
+
+A great gale roared and howled. The waters, driven onwards by its
+furious breath, beat upon the eastern cliffs till these melted like
+snow beneath them, taking away field and church, town and protecting
+wall, and in return casting up the wrecks of ships and the bodies of
+dead men.
+
+Morris could not sleep. Who could sleep in such an awful tempest? Who
+could sleep that had passed through such a parting? Oh! his heart
+ached, and he was as one sick to death, and with him continually was
+the thought of Stella, and before him came the vision of her eyes. He
+could not sleep, so rising, he dressed himself and went to the window.
+High in the heavens swept clean of clouds by the furious blasts floated
+a wandering moon, throwing her ghastly light upon the swirling, furious
+sea. Shorewards rushed the great rollers in unending lines, there to
+break in thunder and seethe across the shingle till the sea-wall
+stopped them and sent the spray flying upwards in thin, white clouds.
+
+“God help those in the power of the sea to-night,” thought Morris, “for
+many of them will not keep Christmas here.”
+
+Then it seemed to his mind, excited by storm and sorrow, as though some
+power were drawing him, as though some voice were telling him that
+there was that which he must hear. Aimlessly, half-unconsciously he
+wandered to his workshop in the old chapel, turned on one of the lamps,
+and stood at the window watching the majestic progress of the storm,
+and thinking, thinking, thinking.
+
+While he remained thus, suddenly, thrilling his nerves as though with a
+quick shock of pain, sharp and clear even in that roar and turmoil,
+rang out the sound of an electric bell. He started round and looked.
+Yes; as he thought in all the laboratory there was only one bell that
+could ring, none other had its batteries charged, and that bell was
+attached to the aerophone whereof the twin stood upon the altar in the
+Dead Church. The instrument was one of the pair with which he had
+carried out his experiments of the last two months.
+
+His heart stood still. “Great God! What could have caused that bell to
+ring?” It could not ring; it was a physical impossibility unless
+somebody were handling the sister instrument, and at four o’clock in
+the morning, who could be there, and except one, who would know its
+working? With a bound he was by the aerophone and had given the
+answering signal. Then instantly, as though she were standing at his
+side in the room, for this machine does not blur the voice or heighten
+its tone, he heard Stella speaking.
+
+“Is it you who answer me?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he said, “but where are you at this hour of the night?”
+
+“Where you left me, in the Dead Church,” floated back the quick reply
+through the raving breadths of storm. “Listen: After you went my
+strength gave out and I suppose that I fainted; at least, a little
+while ago I woke up from a deep sleep to find myself lying before the
+altar here. I was frightened, for I knew that it must be far into the
+night, and an awful gale is blowing which shakes the whole church. I
+went to the door and opened it, and by the light of the moon I saw that
+between me and the shore lies a raging sea hundreds of yards wide. Then
+I came back and threw out my mind to you, and tried to wake you, if you
+slept; tried to make you understand that I wished you to go to the
+aerophone and hear me.”
+
+“I will get help at once,” broke in Morris.
+
+“I beg you,” came back the voice, “I beg you, do not stir. The time is
+very short; already the waves are dashing against the walls of the
+chancel, and I hear the water rumbling in the vaults beneath my feet.
+Listen!” her voice ceased, and in place of it there swelled the shriek
+of the storm which beat about the Dead Church, the rush, too, of the
+water in the hollow vaults and the crashing of old coffins as they were
+washed from their niches. Another instant, and Stella had cut off these
+sounds and was speaking again.
+
+“It is useless to think of help, no boat, nothing could live upon that
+fearful sea; moreover, within five minutes this church must fall and
+vanish.”
+
+“My God! My God!” wailed Morris.
+
+“Do not grieve; it is a waste of precious time, and do not stir till
+the end. I want you to know that I did not seek this death. I never
+dreamed of such a thing. You must tell my father so, and bid him not to
+mourn for me. It was my intention to leave the church within ten
+minutes of yourself. This cup is given to me by the hand of Fate. I did
+not fill it. Do you hear and understand?”
+
+“I hear and understand,” answered Morris.
+
+“Now you see,” she went on, “that our talk to-day was almost inspired.
+My web is woven, my picture is painted, and to me Heaven says, ‘Hold.’
+The thought that it might be so was in your mind, was it not?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And I answered your thought, telling you that time is nothing. This I
+tell you again for your comfort in the days that remain to you of life.
+Oh! I bless God; I bless God Who has dealt so mercifully to me. Where
+are now the long years of lonely suffering that I feared—I who stand
+upon the threshold of the Eternal? . . . I can talk no more, the water
+is rising in the church—already it is about my knees; but remember
+every word which I have said to you; remember that we are wed—truly
+wed, that I go to wait for you, and that even if you do not see me I
+will, if I may, be near you always—till you die, and afterwards will be
+with you always—always.”
+
+“Stay,” cried Morris.
+
+“What have you to say? Be swift, the water rises and the walls are
+cracking.”
+
+“That I love you now and for ever and for ever; that I will remember
+everything; and that I know beyond a doubt that you have seen, and
+speak the truth.”
+
+“Thank you for those blessed words, and for this life fare you well.”
+
+For a moment there was silence, or at least Stella’s voice was silent,
+while Morris stood over the aerophone, the sweat running from his face,
+rocking like a drunken man in his agony and waiting for the end. Then
+suddenly loud, clear, and triumphant, broke upon his ears the sound of
+that song which he had heard her sing upon the sinking ship when her
+death seemed near; the ancient song of the Over-Lord. Once more at the
+last mortal ebb, while the water rose about her breast, Stella’s
+instincts and blood had asserted themselves, and forgetting aught else,
+she was dying as her pagan forefathers had died, with the secret
+ancient chant upon her lips. Yes, she sang as Skarphedinn the hero sang
+while the flame ate out his life.
+
+The song swelled on, and the great waters boomed an accompaniment. Then
+came a sound of crashing walls, and for a moment it ceased, only to
+rise again still clearer and more triumphant. Again a crash—a seething
+hiss—and the instrument was silent, for its twin was shattered.
+Shattered also was the fair shape that held the spirit of Stella.
+
+Again and again Morris spoke eagerly, entreatingly, but the aerophone
+was dumb. So he ceased at length, and even then well nigh laughed when
+he thought that in this useless piece of mechanism he saw a symbol of
+his own soul, which also had lost its mate and could hold true converse
+with no other.
+
+Then he started up, and just as he was, ran out into the raving night.
+
+Three hours later, when the sun rose upon Christmas Day, if any had
+been there to note him they might have seen a dishevelled man standing
+alone upon the lonely shore. There he stood, the back-wash of the
+mighty combers hissing about his knees as he looked seaward beneath the
+hollow of his hand at a spot some two hundred yards away, where one by
+one their long lines were broken into a churning yeast of foam.
+
+Morris knew well what broke them—the fallen ruins of the church that
+was now Stella’s sepulchre, and, oh! in that dark hour, he would have
+been glad to seek her where she lay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+THE RETURN OF MARY
+
+
+Curiously enough, indirectly, but in fact, it was the circumstance of
+Stella’s sudden and mysterious death that made Morris a rich and famous
+man, and caused his invention of the aerophone to come into common use.
+Very early on the following morning, but not before, she was missed
+from the Rectory and sought far and wide. One of the first places
+visited by those who searched was the Abbey, whither they met Morris
+returning through the gale, wild-eyed, flying-haired, and altogether
+strange to see. They asked him if he knew what had become of Miss
+Fregelius.
+
+“Yes,” he replied, “she has been crushed or drowned in the ruins of the
+Dead Church, which was swept away by the gale last night.”
+
+Then they stared and asked how he knew this. He answered that, being
+unable to sleep that night on account of the storm, he had gone into
+his workshop when his attention was suddenly attracted by the bell of
+the aerophone, by means of which he learned that Miss Fregelius had
+been cut off from the shore in the church. He added that he ran as hard
+as he could to the spot, only to find at dawn that the building had
+entirely vanished in the gale, and that the sea had encroached upon the
+land by at least two hundred paces.
+
+Of course these statements concerning the aerophone and its
+capabilities were reported all over the world and much criticised—very
+roughly in some quarters. Thereupon Morris offered to demonstrate the
+truth of what he had said. The controversy proved sharp; but of this he
+was glad; it was a solace to him, perhaps even it prevented him from
+plunging headlong into madness. At first he was stunned; he did not
+feel very much. Then the first effects of the blow passed; a sense of
+the swiftness and inevitableness of this awful consummation seemed to
+sink down into his heart and crush him. The completeness of the
+tragedy, its Greek-play qualities, were overwhelming. Question and
+answer, seed and fruit—there was no space for thought or growth between
+them. The curtain was down upon the Temporal, and lo! almost before its
+folds had shaken to their place, it had risen upon the Eternal. His
+nature reeled beneath this knowledge and his loss. Had it not been for
+those suspicions and attacks it might have fallen.
+
+The details of the struggle need not be entered into, as they have
+little to do with the life-story of Morris Monk. It is enough to say
+that in the end he more than carried out his promises under the
+severest conditions, and in the presence of various scientific bodies
+and other experts.
+
+Afterwards came the natural results; the great aerophone company was
+floated, in which Morris as vendor received half the shares—he would
+take no cash—which shares, by the way, soon stood at five and a
+quarter. Also he found himself a noted man; was asked to deliver an
+address before the British Association; was nominated on the council of
+a leading scientific society, and in due course after a year or two
+received one of the greatest compliments that can be paid to an
+Englishman, that of being elected to its fellowship, as a distinguished
+person, by the committee of a famous Club. Thus did Morris prosper
+greatly—very greatly, and in many different ways; but with all this
+part of his life we are scarcely concerned.
+
+On the day of his daughter’s death Morris visited Mr. Fregelius, for
+whom he had a message. He found the old man utterly crushed and broken.
+
+“The last of the blood, Mr. Monk,” he moaned, when Morris,
+hoarse-voiced and slow-worded, had convinced him of the details of the
+dreadful fact, “the last of the blood; and I left childless. At least
+you will feel for me and with me. _You_ will understand.”
+
+It will be seen that although outside of some loose talk in the
+village, which indirectly had produced results so terrible, no one had
+ever suggested such a thing, curiously enough, by some intuitive
+process, Mr. Fregelius who, to a certain extent, at any rate, guessed
+his daughter’s mind, took it for granted that she had been in love with
+Morris. He seemed to know also by the same deductive process that he
+was attached to her.
+
+“I do, indeed,” said Morris, with a sad smile, thinking that if only
+the clergyman could look into his heart he would perhaps be somewhat
+astonished at the depth of that understanding sympathy.
+
+“I told you,” went on Mr. Fregelius, “and you laughed at me, that it
+was most unlucky her having sung that hateful Norse song, the ‘Greeting
+to Death,’ when you found her upon the steamer Trondhjem.”
+
+“Everything has been unlucky, Mr. Fregelius—or lucky,” he added beneath
+his breath. “But you will like to know that she died singing it. The
+aerophone told me that.”
+
+“Mr. Monk,” the old man said, catching his arm, “my daughter was a
+strange woman, a very strange woman, and since I heard this dreadful
+news I have been afraid that perhaps she was—unhappy. She was leaving
+her home, on your account—yes, on your account, it’s no use pretending
+otherwise, although no one ever told me so—and—that she knew the church
+was going to be washed away.”
+
+“She thought you might think so,” answered Morris, and he gave him
+Stella’s last message. Moreover, he told him more of the real
+circumstances than he revealed to anybody else. He told him what nobody
+else ever knew, for on that lonely coast none had seen him enter or
+leave the place, how he had met her in the church—about the removal of
+the instruments, as he left it to be inferred—and at her wish had come
+home alone because of the gossip which had arisen. He explained also
+that according to her own story, from some unexplained cause she had
+fallen asleep in the church after his departure, and awakened to find
+herself surrounded by the waters with all hope gone.
+
+“And now she is dead, now she is dead,” groaned Mr. Fregelius, “and I
+am alone in the world.”
+
+“I am sorry for you,” said Morris simply, “but there it is. It is no
+use looking backward, we must look forward.”
+
+“Yes, look forward, both of us, since she is hidden from both. You see,
+almost from the first I knew you were fond of her,” added the clergyman
+simply.
+
+“Yes,” he answered, “I am fond of her, though of that the less said the
+better, and because our case is the same I hope that we shall always be
+friends.”
+
+“You are very kind; I shall need a friend now. I am alone now, quite
+alone, and my heart is broken.”
+
+Here it may be added that Morris was even better than his word. Out of
+the wealth that came to him in such plenty, for instance, he was
+careful to augment the old man’s resources without offending his
+feelings, by adding permanently and largely to the endowment of the
+living. Also, he attended to his wants in many other ways which need
+not be enumerated, and not least by constantly visiting him. Many were
+the odd hours and the evenings that shall be told of later, which they
+spent together smoking their pipes in the Rectory study, and talking of
+her who had gone, and whose lost life was the strongest link between
+them. Otherwise and elsewhere, except upon a few extraordinary
+occasions, her name rarely passed the lips of Morris.
+
+Yet within himself he mourned and mourned, although even in the first
+bitterness not as one without hope. He knew that she had spoken truth;
+that she was not dead, but only for a while out of his sight and
+hearing.
+
+Ten days had passed, and for Morris ten weary, almost sleepless,
+nights. The tragedy of the destruction of the new rector’s daughter in
+the ruins of the Dead Church no longer occupied the tongues of men and
+paragraphs in papers. One day the sea gave up the hood of her brown
+ulster, the same that Morris had been seen arranging by Stephen and
+Eliza Layard; it was found upon the beach. After this even the local
+police admitted that the conjectures as to her end must be true, and,
+since for the lack of anything to hold it on there could be no inquest,
+the excitement dwindled and died. Nor indeed, as her father announced
+that he was quite satisfied as to the circumstances of his daughter’s
+death, was any formal inquiry held concerning them. A few people,
+however, still believed that she was not really drowned but had gone
+away secretly for unknown private reasons. The world remembers few
+people, even if they be distinguished, for ten whole days. It has not
+time for such long-continued recollection of the dead, this world of
+the living who hurry on to join them.
+
+If this is the case with the illustrious, the wealthy and the powerful,
+how much more must it be so in the instance of an almost unknown girl,
+a stranger in the land? Morris and her father remembered her, for she
+was part of their lives and lived on with their lives. Stephen Layard
+mourned for the woman whom he had wished to marry—fiercely at first,
+with the sharp pain of disappointed passion; then intermittently; and
+at last, after he was comfortably wedded to somebody else, with a mild
+and sentimental regret three or four times a year. Eliza, too, when
+once convinced that she was “really dead,” was “much shocked,” and
+talked vaguely of the judgments and dispensations of Providence, as
+though this victim were pre-eminently deserving of its most stern
+decrees. It was rumoured, however, among the observant that her
+Christian sorrow was, perhaps, tempered by a secret relief at the
+absence of a rival, who, as she now admitted, sang extremely well and
+had beautiful eyes.
+
+The Colonel also thought of the guest whom the sea had given and taken
+away, and with a real regret, for this girl’s force, talents, and
+loveliness had touched and impressed him who had sufficient intellect
+and experience to know that she was a person cast in a rare and noble
+mould. But to Morris he never mentioned her name. No further confidence
+had passed between them on the matter. Yet he knew that to his son this
+name was holy. Therefore, being in some ways a wise man, he thought it
+well to keep his lips shut and to let the dead bury their dead.
+
+By all the rest Stella Fregelius was soon as much forgotten as though
+she had never walked the world or breathed its air. That gale had done
+much damage and taken away many lives—all down the coast was heard the
+voice of mourning; hers chanced to be one of them, and there was
+nothing to be said.
+
+On the morning of the eleventh day came a telegram from Mary addressed
+to Morris, and dated from London. It was brief and to the point. “Come
+to dinner with me at Seaview, and bring your father.—Mary.”
+
+When Morris drove to Seaview that evening he was as a man is in a
+dream. Sorrow had done its work on him, agonising his nerves, till at
+length they seemed to be blunted as with a very excess of pain, much as
+the nerves of the victims of the Inquisition were sometimes blunted,
+till at length they could scarcely feel the pincers bite or the irons
+burn. Always abstemious, also, for this last twelve days he had
+scarcely swallowed enough food to support him, with the result that his
+body weakened and suffered with his mind.
+
+Then there was a third trouble to contend with,—the dull and gnawing
+sense of shame which seemed to eat into his heart. In actual fact, he
+had been faithful enough to Mary, but in mind he was most unfaithful.
+How could he come to her, the woman who was to be his wife, the woman
+who had dealt so well by him, with the memory of that spiritual
+marriage at the altar of the Dead Church still burning in his
+brain—that marriage which now was consecrated and immortalised by
+death? What had he to give her that was worth her taking? he, who if
+the truth were known, shrank from all idea of union with any earthly
+woman; who longed only to be allowed to live out his time in a solitude
+as complete as he could find or fashion? It was monstrous; it was
+shameful; and then and there he determined that before ever he stood in
+Monksland church by the side of Mary Porson, at least he would tell her
+the truth, and give her leave to choose. To his other sins against her
+deceit should not be added.
+
+“Might I suggest, Morris,” said the Colonel, who as they drove, had
+been watching his son’s face furtively by the light of the brougham
+lamp—“might I suggest that, under all the circumstances, Mary would
+perhaps appreciate an air a little less reminiscent of funerals? You
+may recollect that several months have passed since you parted.”
+
+“Yes,” said Morris, “and a great deal has happened in that time.”
+
+“Of course, her father is dead.” The Colonel alluded to no other death.
+“Poor Porson! How painfully that beastly window in the dining-room will
+remind me of him! Come, here we are; pull yourself together, old
+fellow.”
+
+Morris obeyed as best he could, and presently found himself following
+the Colonel into the drawing-room, for once in his life, as he
+reflected, heartily glad to have the advantage of his parent’s society.
+He could scarcely be expected to be very demonstrative and lover-like
+under the fire of that observant eyeglass.
+
+As they entered the drawing-room by one door, Mary, looking very
+handsome and imposing in a low black dress, which became her fair
+beauty admirably, appeared at the other. Catching sight of Morris, she
+ran, or rather glided, forward with the graceful gait that was one of
+her distinctions, and caught him by both hands, bending her face
+towards him in open and unmistakable invitation.
+
+In a moment it was over somehow, and she was saying:
+
+“Morris, how thin you look, and there are great black lines under your
+eyes! Uncle, what have you been doing to him?”
+
+“When I have had the pleasure of saying, How-do-you-do to you, my
+dear,” he replied in a somewhat offended voice—for the Colonel was not
+fond of being overlooked, even in favour of an interesting son—“I shall
+be happy to do my best to answer your question.”
+
+“Oh! I am so sorry,” she said, advancing her forehead to be kissed;
+“but we saw each other the other day, didn’t we, and one can’t embrace
+two people at once, and of course one must begin somewhere. But, why
+have you made him so thin?”
+
+The Colonel surveyed Morris critically with his eyeglass.
+
+“Really, my dear Mary,” he replied, “I am not responsible for the
+variations in my son’s habit of body.” Then, as Morris turned away
+irritably, he added in a stage whisper, “He’s been a bit upset, poor
+fellow! He felt your father’s death dreadfully.”
+
+Mary winced a little, then, recovering her vivacity, said:
+
+“Well, at any rate, uncle, I am glad to see that nothing of the sort
+has affected your health; I never saw you looking better.”
+
+“Ah! my dear, as we grow older we learn resignation——”
+
+“And how to look after ourselves,” thought Mary.
+
+At that moment dinner was announced, and she went in on Morris’s arm,
+the Colonel gallantly insisting that it should be so. After this things
+progressed a good deal better. The first plunge was over, and the cool
+refreshing waters of Mary’s conversation seemed to give back to
+Morris’s system some of the tone that it had lost. Also, when he
+thought fit to use it, he had a strong will, and he thought fit this
+night. Lastly, like many a man in a quandary before him, he discovered
+the strange advantages of a scientific but liberal absorption of
+champagne. Mary noticed this as she noticed everything, and said
+presently with her eyes wide open:
+
+“Might I ask, my dear, if you are—ill? You are eating next to nothing,
+and that’s your fourth large glass of champagne—you who never drank
+more than two. Don’t you remember how it used to vex my poor dad,
+because he said that it always meant half a bottle wasted, and a
+temptation to the cook?”
+
+Morris laughed—he was able to laugh by now—and replied, as it happened,
+with perfect truth, that he had an awful toothache.
+
+“Then everything is explained,” said Mary. “Did you ever see me with a
+toothache? Well, I should advise you not, for it would be our last
+interview. I will paint it for you after dinner with pure carbolic
+acid; it’s splendid, that is if you don’t drop any on the patient’s
+tongue.”
+
+Morris answered that he would stick to champagne. Then Mary began to
+narrate her experiences in the convent in a fashion so funny that the
+Colonel could scarcely control his laughter, and even Morris,
+toothache, heartache, and all, was genuinely amused.
+
+“Imagine, my dear Morris,” she said, “you know the time I get down to
+breakfast. Or perhaps you don’t. It’s one of those things which I have
+been careful to conceal from you, but you will one day, and I believe
+that over it our matrimonial happiness may be wrecked. Well, at what
+hour do you think I found myself expected to be up in that convent?”
+
+“Seven,” suggested Morris.
+
+“At seven! At a quarter to five, if you please! At a quarter to five
+every morning did some wretched person come and ring a dinner-bell
+outside my door. And it was no use going to sleep again, not the least,
+for at half-past five two hideous old lay-sisters arrived with buckets
+of water—they have a perfect passion for cleanliness—and began to scrub
+out the cell whether you were in bed or whether you weren’t.”
+
+Then she rattled on to other experiences, trivial enough in themselves,
+but so entertaining when touched and lightened with her native humour,
+that very soon the evening had worn itself pleasantly away without a
+single sad or untoward word.
+
+“Good night, dear!” said Mary to Morris, who this time managed to
+embrace her with becoming warmth; “you will come and see me to-morrow,
+won’t you—no, not in the morning. Remember I have been getting up at a
+quarter to five for a month, and I am trying to equalise matters; but
+after luncheon. Then we will sit before a good fire, and have a talk,
+for the weather is so delightfully bad that I am sure I shan’t be
+forced to take exercise.”
+
+“Very well, at three o’clock,” said Morris, when the Colonel, who had
+been reflecting to himself, broke in.
+
+“Look here, my dear, you must be down to lunch, or if you are not you
+ought to be; so, as I want to have a chat with you about some of your
+poor father’s affairs, and am engaged for the rest of the day, I will
+come over then if you will allow me.”
+
+“Certainly, uncle, if you like; but wouldn’t Morris do instead—as
+representing me, I mean?”
+
+“Yes,” he answered; “when you are married he will do perfectly well,
+but until that happy event I am afraid that I must take your personal
+opinion.”
+
+“Oh! very well,” said Mary with a sigh; “I will expect you at a quarter
+past one.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+TWO EXPLANATIONS
+
+
+Accordingly, at a quarter past one on the following day the Colonel
+arrived at Seaview, went in to lunch with Mary, and made himself very
+amusing and agreeable about the domestic complications of his old
+friend, Lady Rawlins and her objectionable husband, and other kindred
+topics. Then, adroitly enough, he changed the conversation to the
+subject of the great gale, and when he talked of it awhile, said
+suddenly:
+
+“I suppose that you have heard of the dreadful thing that happened
+here?”
+
+“What dreadful thing?” asked Mary. “I have heard nothing; you must
+remember that I have been in a convent where one does not see the
+English papers.”
+
+“The death of Stella Fregelius,” said the Colonel sadly.
+
+“What! the daughter of the new rector—the young lady whom Morris took
+off the wreck, and whom I have been longing to ask him about, only I
+forgot last night? Do you mean to say that she is dead?”
+
+“Dead as the sea can make her. She was in the old church yonder when it
+was swept away, and now lies beneath its ruins in four fathoms of
+water.”
+
+“How awful!” said Mary. “Tell me about it; how did it happen?”
+
+“Well, through Morris, poor fellow, so far as I can make out, and that
+is why he is so dreadfully cut up. You see she helped him to carry on
+his experiments with that machine, she sitting in the church and he at
+home in the Abbey, with a couple of miles of coast and water between
+them. Well, you are a woman of the world, my dear, and you must know
+that all this sort of thing means a great deal more intimacy than is
+desirable. How far that intimacy went I do not know, and I do not care
+to inquire, though for my part I believe that it was a very little way
+indeed. Still, Eliza Layard got hold of some cock and bull tale, and
+you can guess the rest.”
+
+“Perfectly,” said Mary in a quiet voice, “if Eliza was concerned in it;
+but please go on with the story.”
+
+“Well, the gossip came to my ears——”
+
+“Through Eliza?” queried Mary.
+
+“Through Eliza—who said——” and he told her about the incident of the
+ulster and the dog-cart, adding that he believed it to be entirely
+untrue.
+
+As Mary made no comment he went on: “I forgot to say that Miss
+Fregelius seems to have refused to marry Stephen Layard, who fell
+violently in love with her, which, to my mind, accounts for some of
+this gossip. Still, I thought it my duty, and the best thing I could
+do, to give a friendly hint to the old clergyman, Stella’s father, a
+funny, withered-up old boy by the way. He seems to have spoken to his
+daughter rather indiscreetly, whereon she waylaid me as I was walking
+on the sands and informed me that she had made up her mind to leave
+this place for London, where she intended to earn her own living by
+singing and playing on the violin. I must tell you that she played
+splendidly, and, in my opinion, had one of the most glorious contralto
+voices that I ever heard.”
+
+“She seems to have been a very attractive young woman,” said Mary, in
+the same quiet, contemplative voice.
+
+“I think,” went on the Colonel, “take her all in all, she was about the
+most attractive young woman that ever I saw, poor thing. Upon my word,
+dear, old as I am, I fell half in love with her myself, and so would
+you if you had seen those eyes of hers.”
+
+“I remember,” broke in Mary, “that old Mr. Tomley, after he returned
+from inspecting the Northumberland living, spoke about Miss Fregelius’s
+wonderful eyes—at the dinner-party, you know, on the night when Morris
+proposed to me,” and she shivered a little as though she had turned
+suddenly cold.
+
+“Well, let me go on with my story. After she had told me this, and I
+had promised to help her with introductions—exactly why or how I
+forget—but I asked her flat out if she was in love with Morris.
+Thereon—I assure you, my dear Mary, it was the most painful scene in
+all my long experience—the poor thing turned white as a sheet, and
+would have fallen if I had not caught hold of her. When she came to
+herself a little, she admitted frankly that this was her case, but
+added—of which, of course, one may believe as much as one likes, that
+she had never known it until I asked the question.”
+
+“I think that quite possible,” said Mary; “and really, uncle, to me
+your cross-examination seems to have been slightly indiscreet.”
+
+“Possibly, my dear, very possibly; even Solomon might be excused for
+occasionally making a mistake where the mysterious articles which young
+ladies call their hearts are concerned. I tell what happened, that is
+all. Shall I go on?”
+
+“If you please.”
+
+“Well, after this she announced that she meant to see Morris once to
+say good-bye to him before she went to London, and left me. Practically
+the next thing I heard about her was that she was dead.”
+
+“Did she commit suicide?” asked Mary.
+
+“It is said not; it is suggested that after Morris’s interview with her
+in the Dead Church—for I gather there was an interview though nobody
+knows about it, and that’s where they met—she fell asleep, which sounds
+an odd thing to do in the midst of such a gale as was raging on
+Christmas Eve, and so was overwhelmed. But who can say? Impressionable
+and unhappy women have done such deeds before now, especially if they
+imagine themselves to have become the object of gossip. Of course,
+also, the mere possibility of such a thing having happened on his
+account would be, and indeed has been, enough to drive a man like
+Morris crazy with grief and remorse.”
+
+“What had he to be remorseful for?” asked Mary. “If a young woman
+chanced to fall in love with him, why should he be blamed, or blame
+himself for that? After all, people’s affections are in their own
+keeping.”
+
+“I imagine—very little, if anything. At least, I know this, that when I
+spoke to him about the matter after my talk with her, I gathered from
+what he said that there was absolutely nothing between them. To be
+quite frank, however, as I have tried to be with you, my dear,
+throughout this conversation, I also gathered that this young lady had
+produced a certain effect upon his mind, or at least that the knowledge
+that she had avowed herself to be attached to him—which I am afraid I
+let out, for I was in a great rage—produced some such effect. Well,
+afterwards I believe, although I have asked no questions and am not
+sure of it, he went and said good-bye to her in this church, at her
+request. Then this dreadful tragedy happened, and there is an end of
+her and her story.”
+
+“Have you any object in telling it to me, uncle?”
+
+“Yes, my dear, I have. I wished you to know the real facts before they
+reached you in whatever distorted version Morris’s fancy or
+imagination, or exaggerated candour, may induce him to present them to
+you. Also, my dear, even if you find, or think you find that you have
+cause of complaint against him, I hope that you will see your way to
+being lenient and shutting your eyes a little.”
+
+“Severity was never my strong point,” interrupted Mary.
+
+“For this reason,” went on the Colonel; “the young woman concerned was
+a very remarkable person; if you could have heard her sing, for
+instance, you would have said so yourself. It is a humiliating
+confession, but I doubt whether one young man out of a hundred, single,
+engaged, or married, could have resisted being attracted by her to just
+such an extent as she pleased, especially if he were flattered by the
+knowledge that she was genuinely attracted by himself.”
+
+Mary made no answer.
+
+“Didn’t you say you had some documents you wanted me to sign?” she
+asked presently.
+
+“Oh, yes; here is the thing,” and he pulled a paper out of his pocket;
+“the lawyers write that it need not be witnessed.”
+
+Mary glanced at it. “Couldn’t Morris have brought this?—he is your
+co-executor, isn’t he?—and saved you the trouble?”
+
+“Undoubtedly he could; but——”
+
+“But what?”
+
+“Well, if you want to know, my dear,” said the Colonel, with a grave
+countenance, “just now Morris is in a state in which I do not care to
+leave more of this important business in his hands than is necessary.”
+
+“What am I to understand by that, uncle?” she said, looking at him
+shrewdly. “Do you mean that he is—not quite well?”
+
+“Yes, Mary, I mean that—he is not quite well; that is, if my
+observation goes for anything. I mean,” he went on with quiet
+vehemence, “I mean that—just at present, of course, he has been so
+upset by this miserable affair that for my part I wouldn’t put any
+confidence in what he says about it, or about anything else. The thing
+has got upon his nerves and rendered him temporarily unfit for the
+business of ordinary life. You know that at the best of times he is a
+very peculiar man and not quite like other people.
+
+“Well, have you signed that? Thank you, my dear. By Jove! I must be
+off; I shall be late as it is. I may rely upon your discretion as to
+what we have been talking about, may I not? but I thought it as well to
+let you know how the land lay.”
+
+“Yes, uncle; and thank you for taking so much trouble.”
+
+When the door had closed behind him Mary reflected awhile. Then she
+said to herself:
+
+“He thinks Morris is a little off his head, and has come here to warn
+me. I should not be surprised, and I daresay that he is right. Any way,
+a new trouble has risen up between us, the shadow of another woman,
+poor thing. Well, shadows melt, and the dead do not come back. She
+seems to have been very charming and clever, and I daresay that she
+fascinated him for a while, but with kindness and patience it will all
+come right. Only I do hope that he will not insist upon making me too
+many confidences.”
+
+So thought Mary, who by nature was forgiving, gentle, and an optimist;
+not guessing how sorely her patience as an affianced wife, and her
+charity as a woman of the world, would be tried within the hour.
+
+From all of which it will be seen that for once the diplomacy of the
+Colonel had prospered somewhat beyond its deserts. The departed cannot
+explain or defend themselves, and Morris’s possible indiscretions
+already stood discounted in the only quarter where they might do harm.
+
+Half an hour later Mary, sitting beside the fire with her toes upon the
+grate and her face to the window, perceived Morris on the gravel drive,
+wearing a preoccupied and rather wretched air. She noted, moreover,
+that before he rang the bell he paused for a moment as though to shake
+himself together.
+
+“Here you are at last,” she said, cheerfully, as he bent down to kiss
+her, “seven whole minutes before your time, which is very nice of you.
+Now, sit down there and get warm, and we will have a good, long talk.”
+
+Morris obeyed. “My father has been lunching with you, has he not?” he
+said somewhat nervously.
+
+“Yes, dear, and telling me all the news, and a sad budget it seems to
+be; about the dreadful disasters of the great gale and the death of
+that poor girl who was staying with you, Miss Fregelius.”
+
+At the mention of this name Morris’s face contorted itself, as the face
+of a man might do who was seized with a sudden pang of sharp and
+unexpected agony.
+
+“Mary,” he said, in a hoarse and broken voice, “I have a confession to
+make to you, and I must make it—about this dead woman, I mean. I will
+not sail under false colours; you must know all the truth, and then
+judge.”
+
+“Dear me,” she answered; “this sounds dreadfully tragic. But I may as
+well tell you at once that I have already heard some gossip.”
+
+“I daresay; but you cannot have heard all the truth, for it was known
+only to me and her.”
+
+Now, do what she would to prevent it, her alarm showed itself in Mary’s
+eyes.
+
+“What am I to understand?” she said in a low voice—and she looked a
+question.
+
+“Oh, no!” he answered with a faint smile; “nothing at all——”
+
+“Not that you have been embracing her, for instance? That, I
+understand, is Eliza Layard’s story.”
+
+“No, no; I never did such a thing in my life.”
+
+A little sigh of relief broke from Mary’s lips. At the worst this was
+but an affair of sentiment.
+
+“I think, dear,” she said in her ordinary slow voice, “that you had
+better set out the trouble in your own words, with as few details as
+possible, or none at all. Such things are painful, are they
+not—especially where the dead are concerned?”
+
+Morris bowed his head and began: “You know I found her on the ship,
+singing as she only could sing, and she was a very strange and
+beautiful woman—perhaps beautiful is not the word—”
+
+“It will do,” interrupted Mary; “at any rate, you thought her
+beautiful.”
+
+“Then afterwards we grew intimate, very intimate, without knowing it,
+almost—indeed, I am not sure that we should ever have known it had it
+not been for the mischief-making of Eliza Layard——”
+
+“May she be rewarded,” ejaculated Mary.
+
+“Well, and after she—that is, Eliza Layard—had spoken to my father, he
+attacked Mr. Fregelius, his daughter, and myself, and it seems that she
+confessed to my father that she was—was——”
+
+“In love with you—not altogether unnatural, perhaps, from my point of
+view; though, of course, she oughtn’t to have been so.”
+
+“Yes, and said that she was going away and—on Christmas Eve we met
+there in the Dead Church. Then somehow—for I had no intention of such a
+thing—all the truth came out, and I found that I was no longer master
+of myself, and—God forgive me! and you, Mary, forgive me, too—that I
+loved her also.”
+
+“And afterwards?” said Mary, moving her skirts a little.
+
+“And afterwards—oh! it will sound strange to you—we made some kind of
+compact for the next world, a sort of spiritual marriage; I can call it
+nothing else. Then I shook hands with her and went away, and in a few
+hours she was dead—dead. But the compact stands, Mary; yes, that
+compact stands for ever.”
+
+“A compact of a spiritual marriage in a place where there is no
+marriage. Do you mean, Morris, that you wish this strange proceeding to
+destroy your physical and earthly engagement to myself?”
+
+“No, no; nor did she wish it; she said so. But you must judge. I feel
+that I have done you a dreadful wrong, and I was determined that you
+should know the worst.”
+
+“That was very good of you,” Mary said, reflectively, “for really there
+is no reason why you should have told me this peculiar story. Morris,
+you have been working pretty hard lately, have you not?”
+
+“Yes,” he replied, absently, “I suppose I have.”
+
+“Was this young lady what is called a mystic?”
+
+“Perhaps. Danish people often are. At any rate, she saw things more
+clearly than most. I mean that the future was nearer to her mind; and
+in a sense, the past also.”
+
+“Indeed. You must have found her a congenial companion. I suppose that
+you talked a good deal of these things?”
+
+“Sometimes we did.”
+
+“And discovered that your views were curiously alike? For when one
+mystic meets another mystic, and the other mystic has beautiful eyes
+and sings divinely, the spiritual marriage will follow almost as a
+matter of course. What else is to be expected? But I am glad that you
+were faithful to your principles, both of you, and clung fast to the
+ethereal side of things.”
+
+Morris writhed beneath this satire, but finding no convenient answer to
+it, made none.
+
+“Do you remember, my dear?” went on Mary, “the conversation we had one
+day in your workshop before we were engaged—that’s years ago, isn’t
+it—about star-gazing considered as a fine art?”
+
+“I remember something,” he said.
+
+“That I told you, for instance, that it might be better if you paid a
+little more attention to matters physical, lest otherwise you should go
+on praying for vision till you could see, and for power until you could
+create?”
+
+Morris nodded.
+
+“Well, and I think I said—didn’t I? that if you insisted upon following
+these spiritual exercises, the result might be that they would return
+upon you in some concrete shape, and take possession of you, and lead
+you into company and surroundings which most of us think it wholesome
+to avoid.”
+
+“Yes, you said something like that.”
+
+“It wasn’t a bad bit of prophecy, was it?” went on Mary, rubbing her
+chin reflectively, “and you see his Satanic Majesty knew very well how
+to bring about its fulfilment. Mystical, lovely, and a wonderful
+mistress of music, which you adore; really, one would think that the
+bait must have been specially selected.”
+
+Crushed though he was, Morris’s temper began to rise beneath the lash
+of Mary’s sarcasm. He knew, however, that it was her method of showing
+jealousy and displeasure, both of them perfectly natural, and did his
+best to restrain himself.
+
+“I do not quite understand you,” he said. “Also, you are unjust to
+her.”
+
+“Not at all. I daresay that in herself she was what you think her, a
+perfect angel; indeed, the descriptions that I have heard from your
+father and yourself leave no doubt of it in my mind. But even angels
+have been put to bad purposes; perhaps their innocence makes it
+possible to take advantage of them——”
+
+He opened his lips to speak, but she held up her hand and went on:
+
+“You mustn’t think me unsympathetic because I put things as they appear
+to my very mundane mind. Look here, Morris, it just comes to this: If
+this exceedingly attractive young lady had made love to you, or had
+induced you to make love to her, so that you ran away with her, or
+anything else, of course you would have behaved badly and cruelly to
+me, but at least your conduct would be natural, and to be explained. We
+all know that men do this kind of thing, and women too, for the matter
+of that, under the influence of passion—and are often very sorry for it
+afterwards. But she didn’t do this; she took you on your weak side,
+which she understood thoroughly—probably because it was her own weak
+side—and out-Heroded Herod, or, rather, out-mysticised the mystic,
+finishing up with some spiritual marriage, which, if it is anything at
+all, is impious. What right have we to make bargains for the Beyond,
+about which we know nothing?”
+
+“She did know something,” said Morris, with a sullen conviction.
+
+“You think she did because you were reduced to a state of mind in
+which, if she had told you that the sun goes round the earth, you would
+quite readily have believed her. My dearest Morris, that way madness
+lies. Perhaps you understand now what I have been driving at, and the
+best proof of the absurdity of the whole thing is that I, stupid as I
+am, from my intimate knowledge of your character since childhood, was
+able to predict that something of this sort would certainly happen to
+you. You will admit that is a little odd, won’t you?”
+
+“Yes, it’s odd; or, perhaps, it shows that you have more of the inner
+sight than you know. But there were circumstances about the story which
+you would find difficult to explain.”
+
+“Not in the least. In your own answer lies the explanation—your
+tendency to twist things. I prophesy certain developments from my
+knowledge of your character, whereupon you at once credit me with
+second sight, which is absurd.”
+
+“I don’t see the analogy,” said Morris.
+
+“Don’t you? I do. All this soul business is just a love affair gone
+wrong. If circumstances had been a little different—if, for instance,
+there had been no Mary Porson—I doubt whether anybody would have heard
+much about spiritual marriages. Somehow I think that things would have
+settled down into a more usual groove.”
+
+Morris did not attempt to answer. He felt that Mary held all the cards,
+and, not unnaturally, was in a mood to play them. Moreover, it was
+desecration to him to discuss Stella’s most secret beliefs with any
+other woman, and especially with Mary. Their points of view were
+absolutely and radically different. The conflict was a conflict between
+the natural and the spiritual law; or, in other words, between hard,
+brutal facts and theories as impalpable as the perfume of a flower, or
+the sound waves that stirred his aerophone. Moreover, he could see
+clearly that Mary’s interpretation of this story was simple; namely,
+that he had fallen into temptation, and that the shock of his parting
+from the lady concerned, followed by her sudden and violent death, had
+bred illusions in his mind. In short, that he was slightly crazy;
+therefore, to be well scolded, pitied, and looked after rather than
+sincerely blamed. The position was scarcely heroic, or one that any man
+would choose to fill; still, he felt that it had its conveniences;
+that, at any rate, it must be accepted.
+
+“All these questions are very much a matter of opinion,” he said; then
+added, unconsciously reflecting one of Stella’s sayings, “and I daresay
+that the truth is for each of us exactly what each of us imagines it to
+be.”
+
+“I was always taught that the truth is the truth, quite irrespective of
+our vague and often silly imaginings; the difficulty being to find out
+exactly what it is.”
+
+“Perhaps,” answered Morris, declining argument which is always useless
+between people are are determined not to sympathise with each other’s
+views. “I knew that you would think my story foolish. I should never
+have troubled you with it, had I not felt it to be my duty, for
+naturally the telling of such a tale puts a man in a ridiculous light.”
+
+“I don’t think you ridiculous, Morris; I think that you are suffering
+slightly from shock, that is all. What I say is that I detest all this
+spiritual hocus-pocus to which you have always had a leaning. I fear
+and hate it instinctively, as some people hate cats, because I know
+that it breeds mischief, and that, as I said before, people who go on
+trying to see, do see, or fancy that they do. While we are in the world
+let the world and its limitations be enough for us. When we go out of
+the world, then the supernatural may become the natural, and cease to
+be hurtful and alarming.”
+
+“Yes,” said Morris, “those are very good rules. Well, Mary, I have told
+you the history of this sad adventure of which the book is now closed
+by death, and I can only say that I am humiliated. If anybody had said
+to me six months ago that I should have to come to you with such a
+confession, I should have answered that he was a liar. But now you
+see——”
+
+“Yes,” repeated Mary, “I see.”
+
+“Then will you give me your answer? For you must judge; I have told you
+that you must judge.”
+
+“Judge not, that ye be not judged,” answered Mary. “Who am I that I
+should pass sentence on your failings? Goodness knows that I have
+plenty of my own; if you don’t believe me, go and ask the nuns at that
+convent. Whatever were the rights and wrongs of it, the thing is
+finished and done with, and nobody can be more sorry for that
+unfortunate girl than I am. Also I think that you have behaved very
+well in coming to tell me about your trouble; but then that is like
+you, Morris, for you couldn’t be deceitful, however hard you might try.
+
+“So, dear, with your leave, we will say no more about Stella Fregelius
+and her spiritual views. When I engaged myself to you, as I told you at
+the time, I did so with my eyes open, for better or for worse, and
+unless you tell me right out that you don’t want me, I have no
+intention of changing my mind, especially as you need looking after,
+and are not likely to come across another Stella.
+
+“There, I haven’t talked so much for months; I am quite tired, and wish
+to forget about all these disagreeables. I am afraid I have spoken
+sharply, but if so you must make allowances, for such stories are apt
+to sour the sweetest-tempered women—for half an hour. If I have seemed
+bitter and cross, dear, it is because I love you better than any
+creature in the world, and can’t bear to think——So you must forgive me.
+Do you, Morris?”
+
+“Forgive! _I_ forgive!” he stammered overwhelmed.
+
+“There,” she said again, very softly, stretching out her arms, “come
+and give me a kiss, and let us change the subject once and for ever. I
+want to tell you about my poor father; he left some messages for you,
+Morris.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+MORRIS, THE MARRIED MAN
+
+
+More than three years had gone by. Within twelve weeks of the date of
+the conversation recorded in the last chapter Morris and Mary were
+married in Monksland church. Although the wedding was what is called
+“quiet” on account of the recent death of the bride’s father, the
+Colonel, who gave her away, was careful that it should be distinguished
+by a certain stamp of modest dignity, which he considered to be fitting
+to the station and fortune of the parties. To him, indeed, this union
+was the cause of heartfelt and earnest rejoicings, which is not
+strange, seeing that it meant nothing less than a new lease of life to
+an ancient family that was on the verge of disappearance. Had Morris
+not married the race would have become extinct, at any rate in the
+direct line; and had he married where there was no money, it might, as
+his father thought, become bankrupt, which in his view was almost
+worse.
+
+The one terror which had haunted the Colonel for years like a
+persistent nightmare was that a day seemed to be at hand when the Monks
+would be driven from Monksland, where, from sire to son, they had sat
+for so many generations. That day had nearly come when he was a young
+man; indeed, it was only averted by his marriage with the somewhat
+humbly born Miss Porson, who brought with her sufficient dowry to
+enable him to pay off the major portion of the mortgages which then
+crippled the estate. But at that time agriculture flourished, and the
+rents from the property were considerable; moreover, the Colonel was
+never of a frugal turn of mind. So it came about that every farthing
+was spent.
+
+Afterwards followed a period of falling revenues and unlet farms. But
+still the expenses went on, with the result, as the reader knows, that
+at the opening of this history things were worse than they had ever
+been, and indeed, without the help received from Mr. Porson, must ere
+that have reached their natural end. Now the marriage of his son with a
+wealthy heiress set a period to all such anxiety, and unless the couple
+should be disappointed of issue, made it as certain as anything can be
+in this mutable world, that for some generations to come, at any rate,
+the name of Monk of Monksland would still appear in the handbooks of
+county families.
+
+In the event these fears proved to be groundless, since by an
+unexpected turn of the wheel of chance Morris became a rich man in
+reward of his own exertions, and was thus made quite independent of his
+wife’s large fortune. This, however, was a circumstance which the
+Colonel could not be expected to foresee, for how could he believe that
+an electrical invention which he looked upon as a mere scientific toy
+would ultimately bring its author not only fame, but an income of many
+thousands per annum? Yet this happened.
+
+Other things happened also which, under the circumstances, were quite
+as satisfactory, seeing that within two years of his marriage Morris
+was the father of a son and daughter, so that the old Abbey, where, by
+the especial request of the Colonel, they had established themselves,
+once more echoed to the voices of little children.
+
+In those days, if anyone among his acquaintances had been asked to
+point out an individual as prosperous and happy as, under the most
+favoured circumstances, it is given to a mortal to be, he would
+unhesitatingly have named Morris Monk.
+
+What was there lacking to this man? He had lineage that in his own
+neighbourhood gave him standing better than that of many an upstart
+baronet or knight, and with it health and wealth. He had a wife who was
+acknowledged universally to be one of the most beautiful, charming, and
+witty women in the county, whose devotion to himself was so marked and
+open that it became a public jest; who had, moreover, presented him
+with healthy and promising offspring. In addition to all these good
+things he had suddenly become in his own line one of the most famous
+persons in the world, so that, wherever civilized man was to be found,
+there his name was known as “Monk, who invented that marvellous
+machine, the aerophone.” Lastly, there was no more need for him, as for
+most of us, to stagger down his road beneath a never lessening burden
+of daily labour. His work was done; a great conception completed after
+half a score of years of toil and experiment had crowned it with
+unquestionable success. Now he could sit at ease and watch the
+struggles of others less fortunate.
+
+There are, however, few men on the right side of sixty whose souls grow
+healthier in idleness. Although nature often recoils from it, man was
+made to work, and he who will not work calls down upon himself some
+curse, visible or invisible, as he who works, although the toil seem
+wasted, wakes up one day to find the arid wilderness where he wanders
+strown with a manna of blessing. This should be the prayer of all of
+understanding, that whatever else it may please Heaven to take away,
+there may be left to them the power and the will to work, through
+disappointment, through rebuffs, through utter failure even, still to
+work. Many things for which they are or are not wholly responsible are
+counted to men as sins. Surely, however, few will press more heavily
+upon the beam of the balance, when at length we are commanded to unfold
+the talents which we have been given and earned, than those fateful
+words: “Lord, mine lies buried in its napkin,” or worse still: “Lord, I
+have spent mine on the idle pleasures which my body loved.”
+
+Therefore it was not to the true welfare of Morris when through lack of
+further ambition, or rather of the sting of that spur of necessity
+which drives most men on, he rested upon his oars, and in practice
+abandoned his labours, drifting down the tide. No man of high
+intelligence and acquisitive brain can toil arduously for a period of
+years and suddenly cease from troubling to find himself, as he expects,
+at rest. For then into the swept and garnished chambers of that empty
+mind enter seven or more blue devils. Depression marks him for its own;
+melancholy forebodings haunt him; remorse for past misdeeds long
+repented of is his daily companion. With these Erinnyes, more felt
+perhaps than any of them, comes the devastating sense that he is
+thwarting the best instinct of his own nature and the divine command to
+labour while there is still light, because the night draws on apace in
+which no man can labour.
+
+Mary was fond of society, in which she liked to be accompanied by her
+husband, so Morris, whose one great anxiety was to please his wife and
+fall in with her every wish, went to a great many parties which he
+hated. Mary liked change also, so it came about that three months in
+the season were spent in London, where they had purchased a house in
+Green Street that was much frequented by the Colonel, and another two,
+or sometimes three, months at the villa on the Riviera, which Mary was
+very fond of on account of its associations with her parents.
+
+Also in the summer and shooting seasons, when they were at home, the
+old Abbey was kept full of guests; for we may be sure that people so
+rich and distinguished did not lack for friends, and Mary made the very
+best of hostesses.
+
+Thus it happened that except at the seasons when his wife retired under
+the pressure of domestic occurrences, Morris found that he had but
+little time left in which to be quiet; that his life in short was no
+longer the life of a worker, but that of a commonplace country
+gentleman of wealth and fashion.
+
+Now it was Mary who had brought these things about, and by design; for
+she was not a woman to act without reasons and an object. It is true
+that she liked a gay and pleasant life, for gaiety and pleasure were
+agreeable to her easy and somewhat indolent mind, also they gave her
+opportunities of exercising her faculties of observation, which were
+considerable.
+
+But Mary was far fonder of her husband than of those and other
+vanities; indeed, her affection for him shone the guiding star of her
+existence. From her childhood she had been devoted to this cousin, who,
+since her earliest days, had been her playmate, and at heart had wished
+to marry him, and no one else. Then he began his experiments, and
+drifted quite away from her. Afterwards things changed, and they became
+engaged. Again the experiments were carried on, with the aid of another
+woman, and again he drifted away from her; also the drifting in this
+instance was attended by serious and painful complications.
+
+Now the complications had ceased to exist; they threatened her
+happiness no more. Indeed, had they been much worse than they were she
+would have overlooked them, being altogether convinced of the truth of
+the old adage which points out the folly of cutting off one’s nose to
+spite one’s face. Whatever his failings or shortcomings, Morris was her
+joy, the human being in whose company she delighted; without whom,
+indeed, her life would be flat, stale, and unprofitable. The stronger
+then was her determination that he should not slip back into his former
+courses; those courses which in the end had always brought about
+estrangement from herself.
+
+Inventions, the details of which she could not understand, meant, as
+she knew well, long days and weeks of solitary brooding; therefore
+inventions, and, indeed, all unnecessary work, were in his case to be
+discouraged. Such solitary brooding also drew from the mind of Morris a
+vague mist of thought about matters esoteric which, to Mary’s belief,
+had the properties of a miasma that crept like poison through his
+being. She wished for no more star-gazing, no more mysticism, and,
+above all, no more memories of the interloping woman who, in his
+company, had studied its doubtful and dangerous delights.
+
+Although since the day of Morris’s confession Mary had never even
+mentioned the name of Stella to him, she by no means forgot that such a
+person once existed. Indeed, carelessly and without seeming to be
+anxious on the subject, she informed herself about her down to the last
+possible detail; so that within a few months of the death of Miss
+Fregelius she knew, as she thought, everything that could be known of
+her life at Monksland. Moreover, she saw three different pictures of
+her: one a somewhat prim photograph which Mr. Fregelius, her father,
+possessed, taken when she was about twenty; another, a coloured drawing
+made by Morris—who was rather clever at catching likenesses—of her as
+she appeared singing in the chapel on the night when she had drawn the
+page-boy, Thomas, from his slumbers; and the third, also a photograph,
+taken by some local amateur, of her and Morris standing together on the
+beach and engaged evidently in eager discussion.
+
+From these three pictures, and especially from Morris’s sketch, which
+showed the spiritual light shining in her eyes, and her face rapt, as
+it were, in a very ecstasy of music, Mary was able to fashion with some
+certainty the likeness of the living woman. The more she studied this
+the more she found it formidable, and the more she understood how it
+came about that her husband had fallen into folly. Also, she learned to
+understand that there might be greater weight and meaning in his
+confession than she had been inclined to allow to it at the time; that,
+at any rate, its extravagances ought not to be set down entirely, as
+her father-in-law had suggested with such extreme cleverness, to the
+vagaries of a mind suffering from sudden shock and alarm.
+
+All these conclusions made Mary anxious, by wrapping her husband round
+with common domestic cares and a web of daily, social incident, to bury
+the memory of this Stella beneath ever-thickening strata of
+forgetfulness; not that in themselves these reminiscences, however
+hallowed, could do her any further actual harm; but because the train
+of thought evoked thereby was, as she conceived, morbid, and dangerous
+to the balance of his mind.
+
+The plan seemed wise and good, and, in the case of most men, probably
+would have succeeded. Yet in Morris’s instance from the commencement it
+was a failure. She had begun by making his story and ideas, absurd
+enough on the face of them, an object of somewhat acute sarcasm, if not
+of ridicule. This was a mistake, since thereby she caused him to
+suppress every outward evidence of them; to lock them away in the most
+secret recesses of his heart. If the lid of a caldron full of fluid is
+screwed down while a fire continues to burn beneath it, the steam which
+otherwise would have passed away harmlessly, gathers and struggles till
+the moment of inevitable catastrophe. The fact that for a while the
+caldron remains inert and the steam invisible is no indication of
+safety. To attain safety in such a case either the fire must be raked
+out or the fluid tapped. Mary had screwed down the lid of her domestic
+caldron, but the flame still burned beneath, and the water still boiled
+within.
+
+This was her first error, and the second proved almost as mischievous.
+She thought to divert Morris from a central idea by a multitude of
+petty counter-attractions; she believed that by stopping him from the
+scientific labours and esoteric speculation connected with this idea,
+that it would be deadened and in time obliterated.
+
+As a matter of fact, by thus emptying his mind of its serious and
+accustomed occupations, Mary made room for the very development she
+dreaded to flourish like an upas tree. For although he breathed no word
+of it, although he showed no sign of it, to Morris the memory of the
+dead was a constant companion. Time heals all things, that is the
+common saying; but would it be possible to formulate any fallacy more
+complete? There are many wounds that time does not heal, and often
+enough against the dead it has no power at all—for how can time compete
+against the eternity of which they have become a part? The love of them
+where they have been truly loved, remains quite unaltered; in some
+instances, indeed, it is emdued with a power of terrible and amazing
+growth.
+
+On earth, very probably, that deep affection would have become subject
+to the natural influences of weakening and decay; and, in the instance
+of a man and woman, the soul-possessing passion might have passed, to
+be replaced by a more moderate, custom-worn affection. But the dead are
+beyond the reach of those mouldering fingers. There they stand, perfect
+and unalterable, with arms which never cease from beckoning, with a
+smile that never grows less sweet. Come storm, come shine, nothing can
+tarnish the pure and gleaming robes in which our vision clothes them.
+We know the worst of them; their faults and failings cannot vex us
+afresh, their errors are all forgiven. It is their best part only that
+remains unrealised and unread, their purest aspirations which we follow
+with leaden wings, their deepest thoughts that we still strive to plumb
+with the short line of our imagination or experience, and to weigh in
+our imperfect balances.
+
+Yes, there they stand, and smile, and beckon, while ever more radiant
+grow their brows, and more to be desired the knowledge of their perfect
+majesty. There is no human passion like this passion for the dead; none
+so awful, none so holy, none so changeless. For they have become
+eternal, and our desire for them is sealed with the stamp of their
+eternity, and strengthens in the shadow of its wings till the shadows
+flee away and we pass to greet them in the dawn of the immortal
+morning.
+
+Yes, within the secret breast of Morris the flame of memory still
+burned, and still seethed those bitter waters of desire for the dead.
+There was nothing carnal about this desire, since the passions of the
+flesh perish with the flesh. Nor was there anything of what a man may
+feel when he sees the woman whom he loves and who loves him, forced to
+another fate, for to those he robs death has this advantage over the
+case of other successful rivals: his embrace purifies, and of it we are
+not jealous. The longing was spiritual, and for this reason it did not
+weaken, but, indeed, became a part of him, to grow with the spirit from
+which it took its birth. Still, had it not been for a chance
+occurrence, there, in the spirit, it might have remained buried, in due
+course to pass away with it and seek its expression in unknown
+conditions and regions unexplored.
+
+In a certain fashion Morris was happy enough. He was very fond of his
+wife, and he adored his little children as men of tender nature do
+adore those that are helpless, and for whose existence they are
+responsible. He appreciated his public reputation, his wealth, and the
+luxury that lapped him round, and above all he was glad to have been
+the means of restoring, and, indeed, of advancing the fortunes of his
+family.
+
+Moreover, as has been said, above all things he desired to please Mary,
+the lovely, amiable woman who had complimented him with her unvarying
+affection; and—when he went astray—who, with scarcely a reproach, had
+led him back into its gentle fold. Least of all, therefore, was it his
+will to flaunt before her eyes the spectre from a past which she wished
+to forget, or even to let her guess that such a past still permeated
+his present. Therefore, on this subject settled the silence of the
+dead, till at length Mary, observant as she was, became well-nigh
+convinced that Stella Fregelius was forgotten, and that her fantastic
+promises were disproved. Yet no mistake could have been more profound.
+
+It was Morris’s habit, whenever he could secure an evening to himself,
+which was not very often, to walk to the Rectory and smoke his pipe in
+the company of Mr. Fregelius. Had Mary chanced to be invisibly present,
+or to peruse a stenographic report of what passed at one of these
+evening calls—whereof, for reasons which she suppressed, she did not
+entirely approve—she might have found sufficient cause to vary her
+opinion. On these occasions ostensibly Morris went to talk about parish
+affairs, and, indeed, to a certain extent he did talk about them. For
+instance, Stella who had been so fond of music, once described to him
+the organ which she would like to have in the fine old parish church of
+Monksland. Now that renovated instrument stood there, and was the
+admiration of the country-side, as it well might be in view of the fact
+that it had cost over four thousand pounds.
+
+Again, Mr. Fregelius wished to erect a monument to his daughter, which,
+as her body never had been found, could properly be placed in the
+chancel of the church. Morris entered heartily into the idea and
+undertook to spend the hundred pounds which the old gentleman had saved
+for this purpose on his account and to the best advantage. In effect he
+did spend it to excellent advantage, as Mr. Fregelius admitted when the
+monument arrived.
+
+It was a lovely thing, executed by one of the first sculptors of the
+day, in white marble upon a black stone bed, and represented the mortal
+shape of Stella. There she lay to the very life, wrapped in a white
+robe, portrayed as a sleeper awakening from the last sleep of death,
+her eyes wide and wondering, and on her face that rapt look which
+Morris had caught in his sketch of her, singing in the chapel. At the
+edge of the base of this remarkable effigy, set flush on the black
+marble in letters of plain copper was her name—Stella Fregelius—with
+the date of her death. On one side appeared the text that she had
+quoted, “O death, where is thy sting?” and on the other its
+continuation, “O grave, where is thy victory?” and at the foot part of
+a verse from the forty-second psalm: “Deep calleth unto deep. . . . All
+Thy waves and storms have gone over me.”
+
+Like the organ, this monument, which stood in the chancel, was much
+admired by everybody, except Mary, who found it rather theatrical; and,
+indeed, when nobody was looking, surveyed it with a gloomy and a
+doubtful eye.
+
+That Morris had something to do with the thing she was quite certain,
+since she knew well that Mr. Fregelius would never have invented any
+memorial so beautiful and full of symbolism; also she doubted his
+ability to pay for a piece of statuary which must have cost many
+hundreds of pounds. A third reason, which seemed to her conclusive, was
+that the face on the statue was the very face of Morris’s drawing,
+although, of course, it was possible that Mr. Fregelius might have
+borrowed the sketch for the use of the sculptor. But of all this,
+although it disturbed her, occurring as it did just when she hoped that
+Stella was beginning to be forgotten, she spoke not a word to Morris.
+“Least said, soonest mended,” is a good if a homely motto, or so
+thought Mary.
+
+The monument had been in place a year, but whenever he was at home
+Morris’s visits to Mr. Fregelius did not grow fewer. Indeed, his wife
+noticed that, if anything, they increased in number, which, as the
+organ was now finished down to the last allegorical carvings of its
+case, seemed remarkable and unnecessary. Of course, the fact was that
+on these occasions the conversation invariably centred on one subject,
+and that subject, Stella. Considered in certain aspects, it must have
+been a piteous thing to see and hear these two men, each of them
+bereaved of one who to them above all others had been the nearest and
+dearest, trying to assuage their grief by mutual consolations. Morris
+had never told Mr. Fregelius all the depth of his attachment to his
+daughter, at least, not in actual, unmistakable words, although, as has
+been said, from the first her father took it for granted, and Morris,
+tacitly at any rate, had accepted the conclusion. Indeed, very soon he
+found that no other subject had such charms for his guest; that of
+Stella he might talk for ever without the least fear that Morris would
+be weary.
+
+So the poor, childless, unfriended old man put aside the reserve and
+timidity which clothed him like a garment, and talked on into those
+sympathetic ears, knowing well, however—for the freemasonry of their
+common love taught it to him—that in the presence of a third person her
+name, no allusion to her, even, must pass his lips. In short, these
+conversations grew at length into a kind of seance or solemn rite; a
+joint offering to the dead of the best that they had to give, their
+tenderest thoughts and memories, made in solemn secrecy and with
+uplifted hearts and minds.
+
+Mr. Fregelius was an historian, and possessed some interesting records,
+upon which it was his habit to descant. Amongst other things he
+instructed Morris in the annals of Stella’s ancestry upon both sides,
+which, as it happened, could be traced back for many generations. In
+these discourses it grew plain to his listener whence had sprung
+certain of her qualities, such as her fearless attitude towards death,
+and her tendency towards mysticism. Here in these musty chronicles, far
+back in the times when those of whom they kept record were half, if not
+wholly, heathen, these same qualities could be discovered among her
+forbears.
+
+Indeed, there was one woman of whom the saga told, a certain ancestress
+named Saevuna, whereof it is written “that she was of all women the
+very fairest, and that she drew the hearts of men with her wonderful
+eyes as the moon draws mists from a marsh,” who, in some ways, might
+have been Stella herself, Stella unchristianized and savage.
+
+This Saevuna’s husband rebelled against the king of his country, and,
+being captured, was doomed to a shameful death by hanging as a traitor.
+Thereon, under pretence of bidding him farewell, she administered
+poison to him, partaking of the same herself; “and,” continues the
+saga, “they both of them, until their pains overcame them, died singing
+a certain ancient song which had descended in the family of one of
+them, and is called the Song of the Over-Lord, or the Offering to
+Death. This song, while strength and voice remained to them, it is the
+duty of this family to say or sing, or so they hold it, in the hour of
+their death. But if they sing it, except by way of learning its words
+and music from their mothers, and escape death, it will not be for very
+long, seeing that when once the offering is laid upon his altar, the
+Over-Lord considers it his own, and, after the fashion of gods and men,
+takes it as soon as he can. So sweet and strange was the singing of
+this Saevuna until she choked that the king and his nobles came out to
+hear it, and all men thought it a great marvel that a woman should sing
+thus in the very pains of death. Moreover, they declared, many of them,
+that while the song went on they could think of nothing else, and that
+strange and wonderful visions passed before their eyes. But of this
+nobody can know the truth for certain, as the woman and her husband
+died long ago.”
+
+“You see,” said Mr. Fregelius, when he had finished translating the
+passage aloud, “it is not wonderful that I thought it unlucky when I
+heard that you had found Stella singing this same song upon the ship,
+much as centuries ago her ancestress, Saevuna, sang it while she and
+her husband died.”
+
+“At any rate, the omen fulfilled itself,” answered Morris, with a sigh,
+“and she, too, died with the song upon her lips, though I do not think
+that it had anything to do with these things, which were fated to
+befall.”
+
+“Well,” said the clergyman, “the fate is fulfilled now, and the song
+will never be sung again. She was the last of her race, and it was a
+law among them that neither words nor music should ever be written
+down.”
+
+When such old tales and legends were exhausted, and, outside the
+immediate object of their search, some of them were of great interest
+to a man who, like Morris, had knowledge of Norse literature, and was
+delighted to discover in Mr. Fregelius a scholar acquainted with the
+original tongues in which they were written, these companions fell back
+upon other matters. But all of them had to do with Stella. One night
+the clergyman read some letters written by her as a child from Denmark.
+On another he produced certain dolls which she had dressed at the same
+period of her life in the costume of the peasants of that country. On a
+third he repeated a piece of rather indifferent poetry composed by her
+when she was a girl of sixteen. Its strange title was, “The
+Resurrection of Dead Roses.” It told how in its author’s fancy the
+flowers which were cut and cast away on earth bloomed again in heaven,
+never to wither more; a pretty allegory, but treated in a childish
+fashion.
+
+Thus, then, from time to time, as occasion offered, did this strange
+pair celebrate the rites they thought so harmless, and upon the altar
+of memory make offerings to their dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+STELLA’S DIARY
+
+
+It seems to be a law of life that nothing can stand completely still
+and changeless. All must vary, must progress or retrograde; the very
+rocks in the bowels of the earth undergo organic alterations, while the
+eternal hills that cover them increase or are worn away. Much more is
+this obvious in the case of ephemeral man, of his thoughts, his works,
+and everything wherewith he has to do, he who within the period of a
+few short years is doomed to appear, wax, wane, and vanish.
+
+Even the conversations of Mr. Fregelius and Morris were subject to the
+working of this universal rule; and in obedience to it must travel
+towards a climax, either of fruition, however unexpected, or, their
+purpose served, whatever it may have been, to decay and death, for lack
+of food upon which to live and flourish. The tiniest groups of impulses
+or incidents have their goal as sure and as appointed as that of the
+cluster of vast globes which form a constellation. Between them the
+principal distinction seems to be one of size, and at present we are
+not in a position to say which may be the most important, the issue of
+the smallest of unrecorded causes, or of the travelling of the great
+worlds. The destiny of a single human soul shaped or directed by the
+one, for aught we know, may be of more weight and value than that of a
+multitude of hoary universes naked of life and spirit. Or perhaps to
+the Eye that sees and judges the difference is nothing.
+
+Thus even these semi-secret interviews when two men met to talk over
+the details of a lost life with which, however profoundly it may have
+influenced them in the past, they appeared, so far as this world is
+concerned, to have nothing more to do, were destined to affect the
+future of one of them in a fashion that could scarcely have been
+foreseen. This became apparent, or put itself in the way of becoming
+apparent, when on a certain evening Morris found Mr. Fregelius seated
+in the rectory dining-room, and by his side a little pile of manuscript
+volumes bound in shabby cloth.
+
+“What are those?” asked Morris. “Her translation of the Saga of the
+Cave Outlaws?”
+
+“No, Morris,” answered Mr. Fregelius—he called him Morris when they
+were alone—“of course not. Don’t you remember that they were bound in
+red?” he added reproachfully, “and that we did them up to send to the
+publisher last week?”
+
+“Yes, yes, of course; he wrote to me yesterday to say that he would be
+glad to bring out the book”—Morris did not add, “at my risk.”—“But what
+are they?”
+
+“They are,” replied Mr. Fregelius, “her journals, which she appears to
+have kept ever since she was fourteen years of age. You remember she
+was going to London on the day that she was drowned—that Christmas Day?
+Well, before she went out to the old church she packed her belongings
+into two boxes, and there those boxes have lain for three years and
+more, because I could never find the heart to meddle with them. But, a
+few nights ago I wasn’t able to sleep—I rest very badly now—so I went
+and undid them, lifting out all the things which her hands had put
+there. At the bottom of one of the boxes I found these volumes, except
+the last of them, in which she was writing till the day of her death.
+That was at the top. I was aware that she kept a diary, for I have seen
+her making the entries; but of its contents I knew nothing. In fact,
+until last night I had forgotten its existence.”
+
+“Have you read it now?” asked Morris.
+
+“I have looked into it; it seems to be a history of her thoughts and
+theories. Facts are very briefly noted. It occurred to me that you
+might like to read it. Why not?”
+
+“Yes, yes, very much,” answered Morris eagerly. “That is, if you think
+she will not mind. You see, it is private.”
+
+Mr. Fregelius took no notice of the tense of which Morris made use, for
+the reason that it seemed natural to him that he should employ it.
+Their strange habit was to talk of Stella, not as we speak of one dead,
+but as a living individuality with whom they chanced for a while to be
+unable to communicate.
+
+“I do not think that she will mind,” he answered slowly; “quite the
+reverse, indeed. It is a record of a phase and period of her existence
+which, I believe, she might wish those who are—interested in her—to
+study, especially as she had no secrets that she could desire to
+conceal. From first to last I believe her life to have been as clear as
+the sky, and as pure as running water.”
+
+“Very well,” answered Morris, “if I come across any passage that I
+think I ought not to read, I will skip.”
+
+“I can find nothing of the sort, or I would not give it to you,” said
+Mr. Fregelius. “But, of course, I have not read the volumes through as
+yet. There has been no time for that. I have sampled them here and
+there, that is all.”
+
+That night Morris took those shabby note-books home with him. Mary, who
+according to her custom went to bed early, being by this time fast
+asleep, he retired to his laboratory in the old chapel, where it was
+his habit to sit, especially when, as at the present time, his father
+was away from home. Here, without wasting a moment, he began his study
+of them.
+
+It was with very strange sensations, such as he had never before
+experienced, that he opened the first of the volumes, written some
+thirteen years earlier, that is, about ten years before Stella’s death.
+Their actual acquaintance had been but brief. Now he was about to
+complete his knowledge of her, to learn many things which he had found
+no time, or had forgotten to inquire into, to discover the explanation
+of various phases of her character hitherto but half-revealed; perhaps
+to trace to its source the energy of that real, but mystic, faith with
+which it was informed. This diary that had come—or perhaps been sent to
+him—in so unexpected a fashion, was the key whereby he hoped to open
+the most hidden chambers of the heart of the woman whom he loved, and
+who loved him with all her strength and soul.
+
+Little wonder, then, that he trembled upon the threshold of such a
+search. He was like the neophyte of some veiled religion, who, after
+long years of arduous labour and painful preparation, is at length
+conducted to the doors of its holy of holies, and left to enter there
+alone. What will he find beyond them? The secret he longed to learn,
+the seal and confirmation of his hard-won faith, or empty, baulking
+nothingness? Would the goddess herself, the unveiled Isis, wait to
+bless her votary within those doors? Or would that hall be tenanted but
+by a painted and bedizened idol, a thing fine with ivory and gold, but
+dead and soulless?
+
+Might it not be better indeed to turn back while there was yet time, to
+be content to dwell on in the wide outer courts of the imagination,
+where faith is always possible, rather than to hazard all? No; it
+would, Morris felt, be best to learn the whole truth, especially as he
+was sure that it could not prove other than satisfying and beautiful.
+Blind must he have been indeed, and utterly without intuition if with
+every veil that was withdrawn from it the soul of Stella did not shine
+more bright.
+
+Another question remained. Was it well that he should read these
+diaries? Was not his mind already full enough of Stella? If once he
+began to read, might it not be overladen? In short, Mary had dealt well
+by him; when those books were open in his hand, would he be dealing
+well by Mary? Answers—excellent answers—to these queries sprang up in
+his mind by dozens.
+
+Stella was dead. “But you are sworn to her in death,” commented the
+voice of Conscience. “Would you rob the living of your allegiance
+before the time?”
+
+There was no possible harm in reading the records of the life and
+thoughts of a friend, or even of a love departed. “Yet,” suggested the
+voice of Conscience, “are you so sure that this life _is_ departed?
+Have you not at whiles felt its presence, that mysterious presence of
+the dead, so sweet, so heavy, and so unmistakable, with which at some
+time or other in their lives many have made acquaintance? Will not the
+study of this life cause that life to draw near? the absorption of
+those thoughts bring about the visits of other and greater thoughts,
+whereof they may have been, as it were, the seed?”
+
+Anyone who knew its author would be interested to read this human
+document, the product of an intelligence singularly bright and clear;
+of a vision whose point of outlook was one of the highest and most
+spiritual peaks in the range of our human imaginings. “Quite so,”
+agreed the voice of Conscience. “For instance, Mary would be delighted.
+Why not begin with her? In fact, why not peruse these pages together—it
+would lead to some interesting arguments? Why pore over them in this
+selfish manner all alone and at the dead of night when no one can
+possibly disturb you, or, since you have blocked the hagioscope, even
+see you? And why does the door of that safe stand open? Because of the
+risk of fire if anyone should chance to come in with a candle, I
+suppose. No, of course it would not be right to leave such books about;
+especially as they do not belong to you.”
+
+Then enraged, or at least seriously irritated, by these impertinent
+comments of his inner self upon himself, Morris bade Conscience to be
+gone to its own place. Next, after contemplating it for a while as Eve
+might have contemplated the apple, unmindful of a certain petition in
+the Lord’s Prayer, he took up the volume marked I, and began to read
+the well-remembered hand-writing with its quaint mediaeval-looking
+contractions. Even at the age when its author had opened her diary, he
+noted that this writing was so tiny and neat that many of the pages
+might have been taken from a monkish missal. Also there were few
+corrections; what she set down was already determined in her mind.
+
+From that time forward Morris sat up even later than usual, nor did he
+waste those precious solitary hours. But the diary covered ten full
+years of a woman’s life, during all of which time certainly never a
+week passed without her making entries in it, some of them of
+considerable length. Thus it came about—for he skipped no word—that a
+full month had gone by before Morris closed the last volume and slipped
+it away into its hiding-place in the safe.
+
+As Mr. Fregelius had said, the history was a history of thoughts and
+theories, rather than of facts, but notwithstanding this, perhaps on
+account of it, indeed, it was certainly a work which would have struck
+the severest and least interested critic as very remarkable. The
+prevailing note was that of vividness. What the writer had felt, what
+she had imagined, what she had desired, was all set out, frequently in
+but few words, with such crystal clearness, such incisive point, that
+it came home to the reader’s thought as a flash of sudden light might
+come home to his eye. In a pre-eminent degree Stella possessed the gift
+of expression. Even her most abstruse self-communings and speculations
+were portrayed so sharply that their meaning could not possibly be
+mistaken. This it was that gave the book much of its value. Her
+thoughts were not vague, she could define them in her own
+consciousness, and, what is more rare, on paper.
+
+So much for the form of the journal, its matter is not so easy to
+describe. At first, as might be expected from her years, it was
+somewhat childish in character, but not on that account the less sweet
+and fragrant of a child’s poor heart. Here with stern accuracy were
+recorded her little faults of omission and commission—how she had
+answered crossly; how she had not done her duty; varied occasionally
+with short poems, some copied, some of her own composition, and prayers
+also of her making, one or two of them very touching and beautiful.
+From time to time, too—indeed this habit clung to her to the last—she
+introduced into her diary descriptions of scenery, generally short and
+detached, but set there evidently because she wished to preserve a
+sketch in words of some sight that had moved her mind.
+
+Here is a brief example describing a scene in Norway, where she was
+visiting, as it appeared to her upon some evening in late autumn: “This
+afternoon I went out to gather cranberries on the edge of the fir-belt
+below the Stead. Beneath me stretched the great moss-swamp, so wide
+that I could not discern its borders, and grey as the sea in winter.
+The wind blew and in the west the sun was setting, a big, red sun which
+glowed like the copper-covered cathedral dome that we saw last week.
+All about in the moss stood pools of black, stagnant water with little
+straggling bushes growing round them. Under the clouds they were ink,
+but in the path of the red light, there they were blood. A man with a
+large basket on his back and a long staff in his hand, was walking
+across the moss from west to east. The wind tossed his cloak and bent
+his grey beard as he threaded his way among the pools. The red light
+fell upon him also, and he looked as though he were on fire. Before
+him, gathering thicker as the sun sank, were shadows and blackness. He
+seemed to walk into the blackness like a man wading into the sea. It
+swallowed him up; he must have felt very lonely with no one near him in
+that immense grey place. Now he was all gone, except his head that wore
+a halo of the red light. He looked like a saint struggling across the
+world into the Black Gates. For a minute he stood still, as though he
+were frightened. Then a sudden gust seemed to sweep him on again, right
+into the Gates, and I lost sight of that man whom I shall never see any
+more. I wonder whether he was a saint or a sinner, and what he will
+find beyond the Gates. A curlew flew past me, borne out of the
+darkness, and its cry made me feel sad and shiver. It might have been
+the man’s soul which wished to look upon the light again. Then the sun
+sank, and there was no light, only the wind moaning, and far, far away
+the sad cry of the curlew.”
+
+This description was simple and unpolished as it was short. Yet it
+impressed the mind of Morris, and its curious allegorical note appealed
+to his imagination. The grey moss broken by stagnant pools, lonesome
+and primeval; the dreary pipe of the wildfowl, the red and angry sun
+fronting the gloom of advancing, oblivious night; the solitary
+traveller, wind-buffeted, way-worn, aged, heavy-laden, fulfilling the
+last stage of his appointed journey to a realm of sleep and shadow. All
+these sprang into vision as he read, till the landscape, concentrated,
+and expressing itself in its tiny central point of human interest, grew
+more real in memory and meaning than many with which he was himself
+familiar.
+
+Yet that description was written by an untrained girl not yet seventeen
+years of age. But with such from first to last, and this was by no
+means the best of them, he found her pages studded.
+
+Then, jotted down from day to day, came the account of the illness and
+death of her twin sister, Gudrun, a pitiful tale to read. Hopes,
+prayers, agonies of despair, all were here recorded; the last scene
+also was set out with a plain and noble dignity, written by the bed of
+death in the presence of death. Now under the hand of suffering the
+child had become a woman, and, as was fitting, her full soul found
+relief in deeper notes. “Good-bye, Gudrun,” she ended, “my heart is
+broken; but I will mourn for you no more. God has called you, and we
+give you back to God. Wait for me, my sister, for I am coming also, and
+I will not linger. I will walk quickly.”
+
+It was from this sad day of her only sister’s death that the first real
+developments of the mystical side of Stella’s character must be dated.
+The sudden vanishing in Gudrun in the bloom of youth and beauty brought
+home to her the lesson which all must learn, in such a fashion that
+henceforth her whole soul was tinged to its sad hue.
+
+“Now I understand it all,” she wrote after returning from the funeral.
+“We do not live to die, we die to live. As a grain of sand to the whole
+shore, as a drop of water to the whole sea, so is what we call our life
+to the real life. Of course one has always been taught that in church,
+but I never really comprehended it before. Henceforth this thought
+shall be a part of me! Every morning when I wake I will remember that I
+am one night nearer to the great dawn, every night when I lie down to
+sleep I will thank God that another day of waiting has ended with the
+sunset. Yes, and I will try to live so that after my last sunset I may
+meet the end as did Gudrun; without a single doubt or fear, for if I
+have nothing to reproach myself with, why should I be reproached? If I
+have longed for light and lived towards the light, however imperfect I
+may be, why should I be allotted to the darkness?”
+
+Almost on the next page appeared a prayer “For the welfare and greater
+glory” of her who was dead, and for the mourner who was left alive,
+with this quaint note appended: “My father would not approve of this,
+as it is against the rubric, but all the same I mean to go on praying
+for the dead. Why should I not? If my poor petitions cannot help them
+who are above the need for help, at least they may show that they are
+not forgotten. Oh! that must be the bitter part; to live on full of
+love and memory and watch forgetfulness creeping into the hearts of the
+loved and the remembered. The priests never thought of it, but there
+lies the real purgatory.”
+
+The diary showed it to be a little more than a year after this that
+spiritual doubts began to possess the soul of Stella. After all, was
+she not mistaken? Was there any world beyond the physical? Were we not
+mere accidents, born of the will or the chance of the flesh, and shaped
+by the pressure of centuries of circumstance? Were not all religions
+different forms of a gigantic fraud played by his own imagination upon
+blind, believing man? And so on to the end of the long list of those
+questions which are as old as thought.
+
+“I look,” she wrote under the influence of this mood, “but everywhere
+is blackness; blackness without a single star. I cry aloud, but the
+only answer is the echo of my own voice beating back upon me from the
+deaf heavens. I pray for faith, yet faith fades and leaves me. I ask
+for signs, and there is no sign. The argument? So far as I have read
+and heard, it seems the other way. And yet I do not believe their
+proofs. I do not believe that so many generations of good men would
+have fed full upon a husk of lies and have lain down to sleep at last
+as though satisfied with meat. My heart rises at the thought. I am
+immortal. I know that I am immortal. I am a spirit. In days to come,
+unchained by matter, time, or space, I shall stand before the throne of
+the Father of all spirits, receiving of His wisdom and fulfilling His
+commandments. Yet, O God, help Thou my unbelief. O God, draw and
+deliver me from this abyss.”
+
+From this time forward here and there in the diary were to be found
+passages, or rather sentences, that Morris did not understand. They
+alluded to some secret and persistent effort which the writer had been
+making, and after one of them came these words, “I have failed again,
+but she was near me; I am sure that she was very near me.”
+
+Then at last came this entry, which, as the writing showed, was written
+with a shaking hand. “I have seen her beyond the possibility of a
+doubt. She appeared, and was with me quite a while; and, oh! the
+rapture! It has left me weak and faint after all that long, long
+preparation. It is of the casting forth of spirits that it is said,
+‘This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,’ but it is also
+true of the drawing of them down. To see a spirit one must grow akin to
+spirits, which is not good for us who are still in the flesh. I am
+satisfied. I have seen, and I _know_. Now I shall call her back no more
+lest the thing should get the mastery of me, and I become unfitted for
+my work on earth. This morning I could scarcely hold the bow of the
+violin, and its sweetest notes sounded harsh to me; I heard discords
+among their harmonies. Also I had no voice to sing, and after all the
+money and time that have been spent upon them, I must keep up my
+playing and singing, since, perhaps, in the future if my father’s
+health should fail, as it often threatens to do, they may be our only
+means of livelihood. NO, I shall try no more; I will stop while there
+is yet time, while I am still my own mistress and have the strength to
+deny me this awful joy. But I have seen! I have seen, and I am
+thankful, who shall never doubt again. Yet the world, and those who
+tread it, can never more be quite the same to me, and that is not
+wholesome. This is the price which must be paid for vision of that
+which we were not meant to touch, to taste, to handle.”
+
+After this, for some years—until it was decided, indeed, that they
+should move to Monksland—there was little of startling interest in the
+diary. It recorded descriptions of the wild moorland scenery, of birds,
+and ferns, and flowers. Also there were sketches of the peasantry and
+of the gentlefolk with whom the writer came in contact; very shrewd and
+clever, some of them, but with this peculiarity—that they were
+absolutely free from unkindness of thought or words, though sometimes
+their author allowed herself the license of a mitigated satire. Such
+things, with notes of domestic and parish matters, and of the progress
+made in her arduous and continual study of vocal and instrumental
+music, made up the sum of these years of the diary. Then at length, at
+the beginning of the last volume, came this entry:
+
+“The unexpected has happened, somebody has actually been found in whose
+eyes this cure of souls is desirable—namely, a certain Mr. Tomley, the
+rector of a village called Monksland, upon the East Coast of England. I
+will sum up the history of the thing. For some years I have been
+getting tired of this place, although, in a way, I love it too. It is
+so lonely here, and—I confess my weakness—playing and singing as I do
+now, I should like, occasionally, to have a better audience than a few
+old, half-deaf clergymen, their preoccupied and commonplace wives, some
+yeomen farmers, and a curate or two.
+
+“It was last year, though I find that I didn’t put it down at the time,
+that at the concert in aid of the rebuilding of Pankford church I
+played Tartini’s ‘Il Trillo del Diavolo,’ to me one of the weirdest and
+most wonderful bits of violin music in the world. I know that I was
+almost crying when I finished it. But next day I saw in the report in
+the local paper, written by ‘Our Musical Man,’ that ‘Miss Fregelius
+then relieved the proceedings with a comic interlude on the violin,
+which was much appreciated by the audience.’ It was that, I confess
+it—yes, the idiotic remark of ‘Our Musical Man,’ which made me
+determine if it was in any way possible that I would shake the dust of
+this village off my feet. Then, so far as my father is concerned, the
+stipend is wretched and decreasing. Also he has never really got on
+here; he is too shy, too reserved, perhaps, in a way, too well read and
+educated, for these rough-and-ready people. Even his foreign name goes
+against him. The curates about here call him ‘Frigid Fregelius.’ It is
+the local idea of a joke.
+
+“So I persuaded him to advertise for an exchange, although he said it
+was a mere waste of money, as nobody in his senses would look at this
+parish. Then came the wonderful thing. After the very first
+advertisement—yes, the very first—arrived a letter from Mr. Tomley,
+rector of Monksland, where the stipend is £100 a year better than this,
+saying that he would wish to inquire into the matter. He has inquired,
+he has been, a pompous old gentleman with a slow voice and a single
+lock of white hair above his forehead; he says that it is satisfactory,
+and that, subject to the consent of the bishop, etc., he thinks that he
+will be glad to effect the exchange. Afterwards I found him in front of
+the house staring at the moorland behind, the sea in front, and the
+church in the middle, and looking very wretched. I asked him why he
+wanted to do it—the words popped out of my mouth, I couldn’t help them;
+it was all so odd.
+
+“Then I found out the reason. Mr. Tomley has a wife who is, or thinks
+she is—I am not sure which—an invalid, and who, I gather, speaks to Mr.
+Tomley with no uncertain sound. Mr. Tomley’s wife was the niece of a
+long-departed rector who was inducted in 1815, and reigned here for
+forty-five years. He was rich, a bachelor, and rebuilt the church. (Is
+it not all written in the fly-leaf of the last register?) Mrs. Tomley
+inherited her uncle’s landed property in this neighbourhood, and says
+that she is only well in the air of Northumberland. So Mr. Tomley has
+to come up here, which he doesn’t at all like, although I gather that
+he is glad to escape from his present squire, who seems to be a
+distinguished but arbitrary old gentleman, an ex-Colonel of the Guards;
+rather quarrelsome, too, with a habit of making fun of Mrs. Tomley.
+There’s the explanation.
+
+“So just because of the silly criticism of ‘Our Musical Man’ we are
+going to move several hundred miles. But is that really the cause? Are
+these things done of our own desire, or do we do them because we must,
+as our forefathers believed? Beneath our shouts and chattering they
+have always heard the slow thunder of the waves of Fate. Through the
+flare of our straw fires and the dust of our hurrying feet, they could
+always see the shadow of his black banners and the sheen of his
+advancing spears, and for them every wayside sign-post was painted with
+his finger.
+
+“I think like that, too, perhaps because I am all, nearly all, Norse,
+and we do not shake off the strong and ancient shackle of our blood in
+the space of a few generations of Christian freedom and enlightenment.
+Yes, I see the finger of Fate upon this sign-post of an advertisement
+in a Church paper. His flag is represented to me by Mr. Tomley’s white
+and cherished lock. Assuredly our migration is decreed of the Norns,
+therefore I accept it without question; but I should like to know what
+kind of a web of destiny they are weaving for us yonder in the place
+called Monksland.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE END OF STELLA’S DIARY
+
+
+A month or two later in the diary came the account of the shipwreck of
+the Trondhjem and of the writer’s rescue from imminent death. “My first
+great adventure,” the pages were headed. They told how her father, with
+whom ready-money was a scarce commodity, and who had a passion for
+small and uncomfortable economies, suddenly determined to save two or
+three pounds by taking a passage in a Norwegian tramp steamboat named
+the Trondhjem. This vessel, laden with a miscellaneous cargo, had put
+in at a Northumbrian port, and carried freight consisting of ready-made
+windows, door-frames, and other wooden house-fittings suited to the
+requirements of the builders of seaside villas, to be delivered at the
+rising watering-place of Northwold, upon her way to London. Then
+followed a description of the voyage, the dirt of the ship, the
+surpassing nastiness of the food, and the roughness of the crew, whose
+sailor-like qualities inspired the writer with no confidence.
+
+Next, the diary which now had been written up by Stella in the Abbey
+where Morris read it, went on to tell of how she had gone to her berth
+one night in the cabin next to that occupied by her father, and being
+tired by a long day in the strong sea air had fallen instantly into a
+heavy sleep, which was disturbed by a nightmare-like dream of shock and
+noise. This imagined pandemonium, it said, was followed by a great
+quiet, in the midst of which she awoke to miss the sound of the
+thumping screw and of the captain shouting his orders from the bridge.
+
+For a while, the writing told, she lay still, till a sense that
+something was wrong awoke her thoroughly, when she lit the candle which
+she kept by her berth, and, rising, peeped out into the saloon to see
+that water was washing along its floor. Presently she made another
+discovery, that she was alone, utterly alone, even her father’s cabin
+being untenanted.
+
+The rest need not be repeated in detail. Throwing on some garments, and
+a red cloak of North-country frieze, she made her way to the deck to
+find that the ship was abandoned by every living soul, including her
+own father; why, or under what circumstances, remained a mystery. She
+retreated into the captain’s cabin, which was on deck, being afraid to
+go below again in the darkness, and sheltered there until the light
+came. Then she went out, and through the dim, mist-laden dawn crept
+forward to the forecastle, and staring over the side discovered that
+the prow of the ship was fixed upon a rock, while her stern and waist,
+which floated clear, heaved and rolled with every sea. As she stood
+thus the vessel slipped back along the reef three feet or more,
+throwing her to the deck, and thrilling her from head to foot with the
+most sickening sensation she had ever experienced. Then the Trondhjem
+caught and hung again, but Stella, so she wrote, knew that the end must
+be near, as the ship would lift off with the full tide and founder, and
+for the first time felt afraid.
+
+“I did not fear what might come after death,” went on the diary, “but I
+did fear the act of death. I was so lonely, and the dim waters looked
+so cold; the brown shoulders of the rocks which showed now and again
+through the surges, so cruel. To be dashed by those cold waters upon
+those iron rocks till the life was slowly ground out of my body! And my
+father—the thought of him tormented my mind. Was he dead, or had he
+deserted me? The last seemed quite impossible, for it would have
+supposed him a coward, and I was sure that he would rather die than
+leave me; therefore, as I feared, the first must be true. I was afraid,
+and I was wretched, and I said my prayers and cried a little, while the
+cold struck me through the red cloak, and the damp mist made me shiver.
+
+“Then suddenly I remembered that it had not been the custom of my
+ancestors and countrywomen of the old time to die weeping, and with the
+thought some of my courage came back. I rose from the deck and stood
+upon the prow of the ship, supporting myself by a rope, as many a dead
+woman of my race has done before me in the hour of battle and
+shipwreck. As I stood thus, believing that I was about to die, there
+floated into my mind a memory of the old Norse song that my mother had
+taught me as she learned it from her mother. It is called the ‘Song of
+the Overlord,’ and for generations without count on their death-beds
+has been sung, or if they were too weak to sing, whispered, by the
+women of my family. Even my mother murmured it upon the day she died,
+although to all appearances she had become an Englishwoman; and the
+first line of it,
+
+“‘Hail to thee, Sky King! Hail to thee, Earth King!’
+
+
+were the last words that the gentlest creature whom I ever knew, my
+sister Gudrun, muttered before she became unconscious. This song it has
+always been held unlucky to sing except upon the actual approach of
+death, since otherwise, so goes the old saying, ‘it draws the arrow
+whose flight was wide,’ and Death, being invoked, comes soon. Still,
+for me I believed there was no escape, for I was quite sure from her
+movements that the steamer would soon come off the rocks, and I had
+made my confession and said my prayers. So I began to sing, and sang my
+loudest, pleasing myself with the empty, foolish thought that in some
+such circumstance as this many a Danish sea-king’s daughter had sung
+that song before me.
+
+“Then, as I sang, a wind began to blow, and suddenly the mist was
+driven before it like puffs of smoke, and in the east behind me rose
+the red ball of the sun. Its light fell upon the rocks and upon the
+waters beyond them, and there to my amazement, appearing and
+disappearing upon the ridges and hollows of the swell, I saw a man
+alone in a sailing-boat, which rode at anchor within thirty yards of
+me. At first I thought that it must be my father, then the man caught
+sight of me, and I saw his face as he looked up, for the sun shone upon
+his dark eyes, and knew that he was a stranger.
+
+“He lifted his anchor and called to me to come to the companion ladder,
+and his voice told me that he was a gentleman. I could not meet him as
+I was, with my hair loose, and bare-footed like some Norse Viking girl.
+So I took the risk, for now, although I cannot tell why, I felt sure
+that no harm would come to him or me, and ran to the cabin, where also
+was this volume of my diary and my mother’s jewels that I did not wish
+to lose. When at last I was ready after a fashion, I came out with my
+bag, and there, splashing through the water of the saloon, ran the
+stranger, shouting angrily to me to be quick, as the ship was lifting
+off the rock, which made me think how brave it was of him to come
+aboard to look for me. In an instant he caught me by the hand, and was
+dragging me up the stairs and down the companion, so that in another
+minute we were together in the boat, and he had told me that my father
+was on shore—thank God!—though with a broken thigh.”
+
+Then some pages of the diary were taken up with the description of the
+twenty-four hours which she had spent on the open sea with himself, of
+their landing, dazed and exhausted, at the Dead Church, and her strange
+desire to explore it, their arrival at the Abbey, and her meeting with
+her father. After these came a passage that may be quoted:—
+
+“He is not handsome—I call him plain—with his projecting brow, large
+mouth, and untidy brown hair. But notwithstanding his stoop and his
+thin hands, he looks a fine man, and, when they light up, his eyes are
+beautiful. It was brave of him, too, very brave, although he thinks
+nothing of it, to come out alone to look for me like that. I wonder
+what brought him? I wonder if anything told his mind that I, a girl
+whom he had never seen, was really on the ship and in danger?
+Perhaps—at any rate, he came, and the odd thing is that from the moment
+I saw him, and especially from the moment I heard his voice, I felt as
+though I had known him all my life. Probably he would think me mad if I
+were to say so; indeed, I am by no means sure that he does not pay me
+that compliment already, with some excuse, perhaps, in view of the
+‘Song of the Overlord’ and all my wild talk. Well, after such a night
+as I had spent anyone might be excused for talking foolishly. It is the
+reaction from never expecting to talk again at all. The chief advantage
+of a diary is that one may indulge in the luxury of telling the actual
+truth. So I will say that I feel as though I had known him always;
+always—and as though I understood him as one understands a person one
+has watched for years. What is more, I think that he understands me
+more than most people do; not that this is wonderful, seeing how few I
+know. At any rate, he guesses more or less what I am thinking about,
+and can see that there is something in the ideas which others consider
+foolish, as perhaps they are.
+
+“It is very odd that I, who had made sure that I was gone, should be
+still alive in this pleasant house, and saved from death by this
+pleasant companion, to find my father, whom I feared was dead, also
+living. And all this after I had sung the ‘Song of the Overlord!’ So
+much for its ill-luck. But, all the same, my father was rather upset
+when he heard that I had been found singing it. He is very
+superstitious, my dear old father; that is one of the few Norse
+characteristics which he has left in him. I told him that there was no
+use in being disturbed, since, in the end, things must go as they are
+fated.
+
+“Mr. Monk is engaged to a Miss Porson. He told me that in the boat. I
+asked him what he was thinking of when we nearly over-set against that
+dreadful rock. He answered that he could only think of the song he had
+heard me singing on the ship, which I considered a great compliment to
+my voice, quite the nicest I ever had. But he ought to have been
+thinking about the lady to whom he is engaged, and he understood that I
+thought so, which I daresay I should not have allowed him to do.
+However, when people believe that they are going to be drowned they
+grow confidential, and expose their minds freely. He exposed his when
+he told me that he thought I was talking egregious nonsense, and I am
+afraid that I laughed at him. I don’t think that he really can love
+her—that is, as engaged people are supposed to love each other. If he
+did he would not have grown so angry—with himself—and then turned upon
+me because the recollection of my old death song had interfered with
+the reflections which he ought to have offered upon her altar. That is
+what struck me as odd; not his neglecting to remember her in a moment
+of danger, since then we often forget everything except some triviality
+of the hour. But, of course, this is all nonsense, which I oughtn’t to
+write here even, as most people have their own ways of being fond of
+each other. Also, it is no affair of mine.
+
+“I have seen Miss Porson’s photograph, a large one of her in Court
+dress, which stands in Mr. Monk’s laboratory (such a lovely place, it
+was an old chapel). She is a beautiful woman; large and soft and
+regal-looking, a very woman; it would be difficult to imagine a better
+specimen of ‘the eternal feminine.’ Also, they say, that is, the nurse
+who is looking after my father says, that she is very rich and devoted
+to ‘Mr. Morris.’ So Mr. Morris is a lucky man. I wonder why he didn’t
+save her from a shipwreck instead of me. It would have given an
+appropriate touch of romance to the affair, which is now entirely
+wasted upon a young person, if I may still call myself so, with whom it
+has no concern.
+
+“What interests me more than our host’s matrimonial engagements,
+however, are his experiments with aerophones. That is a wonderful
+invention if only it can be made to work without fail upon all
+occasions. I do wish that I could help him there. It would be some
+return for his great kindness, for it must be a dreadful nuisance to
+have an old clergyman with a broken leg and his inconvenient daughter
+suddenly quartered upon you for an unlimited period of time.”
+
+The record of the following weeks was very full, but almost entirely
+concerned—brief mention of other things, such as her father’s health
+excepted—with full and accurate notes and descriptions of the aerophone
+experiments. To Morris reading them it was wonderful, especially as
+Stella had received no training in the science of electricity, that she
+could have grasped the subject thus thoroughly in so short a time.
+Evidently she must have had a considerable aptitude for its theory and
+practice, as might be seen by the study that she gave to the literature
+which he lent her, including some manuscript volumes of his own notes.
+Also there were other entries. Thus:
+
+“To-day Mr. Stephen Layard proposed to me in the Dead Church. I had
+seen it coming for the last three weeks and wished to avoid it, but he
+would not take a hint. I am most sorry, as I really think he cares
+about me—for the while—which is very kind of him. But it is out of the
+question, and I had to say no. Indeed, he repels me. I do not even like
+being in the same room with him, although no doubt this is very
+fastidious and wrong of me. I hope that he will get over it soon; in
+fact, although he seemed distressed, I am not vain enough to suppose
+that it will be otherwise. . . .
+
+“Of course, my father is angry, for reasons which I need not set down.
+This I expected, but he said some things which I wish he had left
+unsaid, for they made me answer him as I ought not to have done.
+Fathers and daughters look at marriage from such different standpoints;
+what is excellent in their eyes may be as bad as death, or in some
+cases worse to the woman who of course must pay the price. . . .
+
+“I sang and played my best last night, my very, very best; indeed, I
+don’t think I ever did so well before, and perhaps never shall again.
+He was moved—more moved than I meant him to be, and I was moved myself.
+I suppose that it was the surroundings; that old chapel—how well those
+monks understood acoustic properties—the moonlight, the upset to my
+nerves this afternoon, my fear that he believed that I had accepted Mr.
+L. (imagine his believing that! I thought better of him, and he _did_
+believe it)—everything put together.
+
+“While I was singing he told me that he was going away—to see Miss
+Porson at Beaulieu, I suppose. When I had finished—oh! how tired I was
+after the effort was over—he asked me straight out if I intended to
+marry Mr. Layard, and I asked him if he was mad! Then I put another
+question, I don’t know why; I never meant to do it, but it came up from
+my heart—whether he had not said that he was going away? In answer he
+explained that he was thinking of so doing, but had changed his mind.
+Oh! I was pleased when I heard that. I was never so pleased in my life
+before. After all, the gift of music is of some use.
+
+“But why should I have been pleased? Mr. Monk’s comings or goings are
+nothing to me; I have no right to interfere with them, even indirectly,
+or to concern myself about them. Yet I cried when I heard those words,
+but I suppose it was the music that made me cry; it has that
+inconvenient effect sometimes. Well, I have no doubt that he will see
+plenty of Miss Porson, and it would have been a great pity to break off
+the experiments just now.”
+
+One more extract from the very last entry in the series of books. It
+was written at the Rectory on Christmas Eve, just before Stella started
+out to meet Morris at the Dead Church:
+
+“He—Colonel M.—asked me and I told him the truth straight out. I could
+not help myself; it burst from my lips, although the strange thing is
+that until he put it into my mind with the question, I knew _nothing_.
+Then of a sudden, in an instant; in a flash; I understood and I knew
+that my whole being belonged to this man, his son Morris. What is love?
+Once I remember hearing a clever cynic argue that between men and women
+no such thing exists. He called their affection by other names, and
+said that for true love to be present the influence of sex must be
+absent. This he proved by declaring that this marvellous passion of
+love about which people talk and write is never heard of where its
+object is old or deformed, or even very ugly, although such accidents
+of chance and time are no bar to the true love of—let us say—the child
+and the parent, or the friend and the friend.
+
+“Well, the argument seemed difficult to answer, although at the time I
+knew that it must be wrong, but how could I, who was utterly without
+experience, talk of such a hard matter? Now I understand that love; the
+real love between a man and a woman, if it be real, embraces all the
+other sorts of love. More—whether the key be physical or spiritual, it
+unlocks a window in our hearts through which we see a different world
+from the world that we have known. Also with this new vision come
+memories and foresights. This man whom I love—three months ago I had
+never seen his face—and now I feel as though I had known him not only
+all my life, but from the beginning of time—as though we never could be
+parted any more.
+
+“And I talk thus about one who has never said a tender word to me. Why?
+Because my thought, is his thought, and my mind his mind. How am I sure
+of that? Because it came upon me at the moment when I learned the truth
+about myself. He and I are one, therefore I learned the truth about him
+also.
+
+“I was like Eve when she left the Tree; knowledge was mine, only I had
+eaten of the fruit of Life. Yet the taste of it must be bitter in my
+mouth. What have I done? I have given my spirit into the keeping of a
+man who is pledged to another woman, and, as I think, have taken his
+from her keeping to my own. What then? Is this other woman, who is so
+good and kind, to be robbed of all that is left to her in the world? Am
+I to take from her him who is almost her husband? Never. If his heart
+has come to me I cannot help it—for the rest, no. So what is left to
+me? His spirit and all the future when the flesh is done with; that is
+heritage enough. How the philosopher who argued about the love of men
+and women would laugh and mock if he could see these words. Supposing
+that he could say, ‘Stella Fregelius, I am in a position to offer you a
+choice. Will you have this man for your husband and live out your
+natural lives upon the strict stipulation that your relationship ends
+absolutely and forever with your last breaths? Or will you let him go
+to the other woman for their natural lives with the prospect of that
+heritage which your imagination has fashioned; that dim eternity of
+double joy where, hand in hand, twain and yet one, you will fulfil the
+secret purpose of your destinies?’
+
+“What should I answer then?
+
+“Before Heaven I would answer that I would not sell myself to the devil
+of the flesh and of this present world. What! Barter my birthright of
+immortality for the mess of pottage of a few brief years of union? Pay
+out my high hopes to their last bright coin for this dinner of mingled
+herbs? Drain the well of faith dug with so many prayers and labours,
+that its waters may suffice to nourish a rose planted in the sand,
+whose blooms must die at the first touch of creeping earthly frost?
+
+“The philosopher would say that I was mad; that the linnet in the hand
+is better than all the birds of paradise which ever flew in fabled
+tropic seas.
+
+“I reply that I am content to wait till upon some glorious morning my
+ship breaks into the silence of those seas, and, watching from her
+battered bulwarks, I behold the islands of the Blest and catch the
+scent of heavenly flowers, and see the jewelled birds, whereof I dream
+floating from palm to palm.
+
+“‘But if there are no such isles?’ he would answer; ‘If, with their
+magic birds and flowers, they are indeed but the baseless fabric of a
+dream? If your ship, amidst the ravings of the storm and the darkness
+of the tortured night, should founder once and for ever in the dark
+strait which leads to the gateways of that Dawn—those gateways through
+which no traveller returns to lay his fellows’ course for the harbours
+of your perfect sea; what then?’
+
+“Then I would say, let me forswear God Who has suffered me to be
+deceived with false spirits, and sink to depths where no light breaks,
+where no memories stir, where no hopes torment. Yes, then let me deny
+Him and die, who am of all women the most miserable. But it is not so,
+for to me a messenger has _come_; at my prayer once the Gates were
+opened, and now I know quite surely that it was permitted to me to see
+within them that I might find strength in this the bitter hour of my
+trial.
+
+“Yet how can I choke the truth and tread down the human heart within
+me? Oh! the road which my naked feet must tread is full of thorns, and
+heavy the cross that I must bear. I go now, in a few minutes’ time, to
+bid him farewell. If I can help it I shall never see him again. No, not
+even after many years, since it is better not. Also, perhaps this is
+weakness, but I should wish him to remember me wearing such beauty as I
+have and still young, before time and grief and labour have marked me
+with their ugly scars. It is the Stella whom he found singing at the
+daybreak on the ship which brought her to him, for whom I desire that
+he should seek in the hour of a different dawn.
+
+“I go presently, to my marriage, as it were; a cold and pitiful feast,
+many would think it—these nuptials of life-long renunciation. The
+philosopher would say, Why renounce? You have some advantages, some
+powers, use them. The man loves you, play upon his natural weakness.
+Help yourself to the thing that chances to be desirable in your eyes.
+Three years hence who will blame you, who will even remember? His
+father? Well, he likes you already, and in time a man of the world
+accepts accomplished facts, especially if things go well, as they will
+do, for that invention must succeed. No one else? Yes; three others. He
+would remember, however much he loved me, for I should have brought him
+to do a shameful act. And she would remember, whom I had robbed of her
+husband, coming into his life after he had promised himself to her.
+Last of all—most of all, perhaps—I myself should remember, day by day,
+and hour by hour, that I was nothing more than one of the family of
+thieves.
+
+“No; I will have none of such philosophy; at least I, Stella Fregelius,
+will live and die among the upright. So I go to my cold marriage, such
+as it is; so I bend my back to the burden, so I bow my head to the
+storm; and throughout it all I thank God for what he has been pleased
+to send me. I may seem poor, but how rich I am who have been dowered
+with a love that I know to be eternal as my eternal soul. I go, and my
+husband shall receive me, not with a lover’s kiss and tenderness, but
+with words few and sad, with greetings that, almost before their echoes
+die, must fade into farewells. I wrap no veil about my head, he will
+set no ring upon my hand, perchance we shall plight no troth. So be it;
+our hour of harvest is not yet.
+
+“Yesterday was very sharp and bleak, with scuds of sleet and snow
+driven by the wind, but as I drove here with my father I saw a man and
+a woman in the midst of an empty, lifeless field, planting some winter
+seed. Who, looking at them, who that did not know, could foretell the
+fruits of their miserable, unhopeful labour? Yet the summer will come
+and the sweet smell of the flowering beans, and the song of the nesting
+birds, and the plentiful reward of the year crowned with fatness. It is
+a symbol of this marriage of mine. To-day we sow the seed; next, after
+a space of raving rains and winds, will follow the long, white winter
+of death, then some dim, sweet spring of awakening, and beyond it the
+fulness of all joy.
+
+“What is there about me that it would make me ashamed that he should
+know; this husband to whom I must tell nothing? I cannot think. No
+other man has been anything to me. I can remember no great sin. I have
+worked, making the best of such gifts as I possess. I have tried to do
+my duty, and I will do it to the end. Surely my heart is whole and my
+hands are clean. Perhaps it is a sin that I should have learned to love
+him; that I should look to a far future where I may be with him. If so,
+am I to blame, who ask nothing here? Can I conquer destiny who am its
+child? Can I read or shape the purpose of my Maker?
+
+“And so I go. O God, I pray Thee of Thy mercy, give me strength to bear
+my temptations and my trials; and to him, also, give every strength and
+blessing. O Father, I pray Thee of Thy mercy, shorten these the days of
+my tribulation upon earth. Accept and sanctify this my sacrifice of
+denial; grant me pardon here, and hereafter through all the abyss of
+time in Thy knowledge and presence, that perfect peace which I desire
+with him to whom I am appointed. Amen.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+THE EVIL GATE
+
+
+Such was the end of the diary of Stella.
+
+Morris shut the book with something like a sob. Then he rose and began
+to tramp up and down the length of the long, lonely room, while
+thoughts, crowded, confused, and overwhelming, pressed in upon his
+mind. What a woman was this whom he had lost! Who had known another so
+pure, so spiritual? Surely she did not belong to this world, and
+therefore her last prayer was so quickly answered, therefore Heaven
+took her. Many reading those final pages might have said with the
+philosopher she imagined that the shock of love and the sorrow of
+separation had turned her brain, and that she was mad. For who, so such
+might argue, would think that person otherwise than mad who dared to
+translate into action, and on earth to set up as a ruling star, that
+faith which day by day their lips professed.
+
+Yet it would seem after all that this “dreamer and mystic” Stella
+believed in nothing which our religion, accepted by millions without
+cavil, does not promise to its votaries. Its revelations and rewards
+marked the extremest limits of her fantasy; immortality of the personal
+soul, its foundation stone, was the rock on which she built. A heaven
+where there is no earthly marriage, but where each may consort with the
+souls most loved and most desired; where all sorrows are forgotten, all
+tears are wiped away, all purposes made clear, reserved for those who
+deny themselves, do their duty, and seek forgiveness of their sins—this
+heaven conceived by Stella, is it not vowed to us in the pages of the
+Gospel? Is it not vowed again and again, sometimes with more detail,
+sometimes with less; sometimes in open, simple words, sometimes wrapped
+in the mystic allegory of the visions of St. John; but everywhere and
+continually held before us as our crown and great reward? And the rest,
+such things as her belief in guardian angels, and that it had been
+given to her mortal eyes to behold and commune with a beloved ghost, is
+there not ample warrant for them in those inspired writings? Were not
+the dead seen of many in Jerusalem on the night of fear, and are we not
+told of “ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of
+them that shall inherit salvation?” and of the guardian angels, who
+look continually upon the Father?
+
+Now it all grew clear to Morris. In Stella he beheld an example of the
+doctrines of Christianity really inspiring the daily life of the
+believer. If her strong faith animated all those who served under that
+banner, then in like circumstances they would act as she had acted.
+They would have no doubts; their fears would vanish; their griefs be
+comforted, and, to a great extent, even the promptings and passions of
+their mortality would be trodden under foot. With Stella they would be
+ready to neglect the temporary in their certainty of the eternal, and
+even to welcome death, to them in truth, and not in mere convention,
+the Gate of Life.
+
+Many things are promised to those who can achieve faith. Stella
+achieved it and became endued with some portion of the promise.
+Spiritual faith, not inherited, nor accepted, but hard-won by personal
+struggle and experience; that was the key-note to her character and the
+explanation of her actions. Yet that faith, when examined into, was
+nothing exotic; no combination of mysticism and mummery, but one
+founded upon the daily creed of the English and its fellow churches,
+and understood and applied to the circumstances of a life which was as
+brief as it seemed to be unfortunate. This was Morris’s discovery, open
+and obvious enough, and yet at first until he grew accustomed to it, a
+thing marvellous in his eyes; one, moreover, in which he found comfort;
+since surely that straight but simple path was such as his feet might
+follow.
+
+And she loved him. Oh! how she had loved him. There could be no doubt;
+there were her words written in that book, not hastily spoken beneath
+the pressure of some sudden wind of feeling, but set down in black and
+white, thought over, reasoned out, and recorded. And then their
+purport. They were a paean of passion, but the dirge of its denial.
+They dwelt upon the natural hopes of woman only to put them by.
+
+“Yet how can I choke the truth and tread down the human heart within
+me? Oh! the road that my naked feet must tread is full of thorns, and
+heavy the cross that I must bear. . . . So I go to my marriage, such as
+it is, so I bend my back to the burden, so I bow my head to the storm,
+and through it all I thank God for what He has been pleased to send me.
+I may seem poor, but how rich I am who have been dowered with a love
+that I know to be eternal as my eternal soul.”
+
+That was her creed, those were the teachings of her philosophy. And
+this was the woman who had loved him, who died loving him. Her very
+words came back, spoken but a few seconds before the end:—“Remember
+every word which I have said to you. Remember that we are wed—truly
+wed; that I go to wait for you, and that even if you do not see me, I
+will, if I may, be near you always.”
+
+“I go to wait for you. I will be near you always.” Here was another
+inspiration. For three years or more he had been thinking of her as
+dead. Or rather he had thought of her in that nebulous, undefined
+fashion in which we consider the dead; the slumberous people who forget
+everything, who see nothing; who, if they exist at all, are like stones
+upon the beach rolled to and fro blind and senseless, not of their own
+desire, but by the waves of a fearful fate that itself is driven on
+with the strength of a secret storm of Will. And this fate some call
+the Breath of God, and some the working of a soulless force that
+compels the universe, past, present, and to be.
+
+But was this view as real as it is common? If Stella were right, if our
+religion were right, it must be most wrong. That religion told us that
+the Master of mankind descended into Hades to preach to the souls of
+men. Did he preach to dumb, ocean-driven stones, to frozen forms and
+fossils who had once been men, or to spirits, changed, but active and
+existent?
+
+Stella, too, had walked in the valley of doubt, by the path which all
+who think must tread; it was written large in the book of her life. But
+she had not fainted there; she had lived through its thunder-rains, its
+arid blasts of withering dust, its quivering quicksands, and its
+mirage-like meadows gay with deceitful, poisonous flowers. At last she
+had reached the mountain slopes of Truth to travel up them higher—ever
+higher, till she won their topmost peak, where the sun shone undimmed
+and the pure air blew; whence the world seemed far away and heaven very
+near. Yes, and from that heaven she had called down the spirit of her
+lost sister, and thenceforward was content and sure.
+
+She had called down the spirit of her sister. Was it not written in the
+pages which she thought that no eye but hers would see?
+
+Well, if such spirits were, hers—Stella’s—must be also. And if they
+could be made apparent, why should not hers share their qualities?
+
+Morris paused in his swift walk and trembled: “I will be near you
+always.” For aught he knew she was near him now—present, perhaps, in
+this very room. While she was still in life, what were her aspirations?
+This was one of them, he remembered, as it fell from her lips: “Still
+to be with those whom I have loved on earth, although they cannot see
+me; to soothe their sorrows, to support their weakness, to lull their
+fears.” And if this were so; if any power were given her to fulfil her
+will, whom would she sooner visit than himself?
+
+Stay! That was her wish on earth, while she was a woman. But would she
+still wish it afterwards? The spirit was not the flesh, the spirit
+could see and be sure, while the flesh must be content with deductions
+and hazardings. If she could see, she would know him as he was; every
+failing, every secret infirmity, every infidelity of heart, might be an
+open writing to her eyes. And then would she not close that book in
+horror?
+
+A great writer has said in effect that no man would dare to affront the
+ears of his fellows—men much worse than himself perhaps—with the true
+details of his hidden history. Knowing all the truth, they would shrink
+from him. How much more then at such sights and sounds would a pure
+spirit, washed clean of every taint of earth, fly from his soiled
+presence, wailing and aghast? Nay, men are hypocrites, who, in greater
+or less degree, themselves practice the very sins that shock them, but
+spirits, knowing all, would forgive all. They are above hypocrisy. If
+the Lord of spirits can weigh the “dust whereof we are made” and still
+be merciful, shall his bright messengers trample it in scorn and hate?
+Will they not also consider the longings of the heart and its
+uprightness, and be pitiful towards the failings of the flesh? Would
+Stella hate him because he remained as he was made—as herself she might
+once have been? Because having no wings with which to rule the air he
+must still tramp onwards through the foetid, clinging mud of earth?
+
+Oh! how he longed to see her, that he might win her faith; win it
+beyond all doubt by the evidence of his earthly eyes and senses. “If I
+die, search and you shall see,” she had once said to him, and then
+added, “No, do not search, but wait.” Wait! How could he wait? “At your
+death I will be with you.” Why he might live another fifty years! That
+book of her recorded thoughts had aroused in him such a desire for the
+sight, or at least the actual knowledge of her continued being, that
+his blood was aflame as with a madness. And yet how should he search?
+
+“Stella,” he whispered, “come to me, Stella!” But no Stella came; no
+wings rustled, no breath stirred; the empty room was as the room had
+been. Its silence seemed to mock him. Those who slept beneath its
+marble floor were not more silent.
+
+Was he mad that he should claim the power to work this miracle—to charm
+the dead back through the Gates of Death as Orpheus charmed Eurydice?
+Yet Stella did this thing—but how? He turned to the volume and page of
+her diary which dealt with the drawing down of Gudrun. Yes, here she
+spoke of continual efforts and of “that long, long preparation”—of
+prayer and fasting also. Here, too, was the whole secret summed up in a
+dozen words: “To see a spirit one must grow akin to spirits.” Well, it
+could be done, and he would do it. But look further on where she said:
+“I shall call her back no more, lest the thing should get the mastery
+of me, and I become unfitted for my work on earth. . . . I will stop
+while there is yet time, while I am still mistress of my mind, and have
+the strength to deny myself this awful joy.”
+
+Was there not a warning in these words, and in those other words: “No,
+do not search, but wait.” Surely they told of risk to him who, being
+yet on earth, dared to lift a corner of the veil which separates flesh
+and spirit. “Should get the mastery of me.” If he saw her once would he
+be able to do as Stella did, and by an effort of his will separate
+himself from a communion so fearful yet so sweet? “Unfitted for my
+work.” Supposing that it did get the mastery of him, would he not also
+be unfitted for his work on earth?
+
+His work? What work had he now? It seemed to be done; for attending
+scientific meetings, receiving dividends, playing the country squire’s
+only son and the wealthy host whilst awaiting the title which Mary
+wished for—these things are not work, and somehow his days were so
+arranged that he was never allowed to go beyond them. All further
+researches and experiments were discouraged. What did it matter if he
+were unfitted for that which he could no longer do? His work was
+finished. There it stood before him in that box, stamped “Monk’s
+aerophone. The Twin. No. 3412.”
+
+No; he had but one ambition left. To pierce the curtain of thick night
+and behold her who was lost to him; her who loved him as man had been
+seldom loved.
+
+The fierce temptation struck him as a sudden squall strikes a ship with
+all her canvas spread. For a moment mast and rigging stood the strain,
+then they went by the board. He would do it if it killed him; but the
+task must be undertaken properly, deliberately, and above all in
+secret. To-morrow he would begin. When he had satisfied himself; when
+he had seen; then he could always stop.
+
+A few minutes later Morris stood beside his wife’s bed. There she lay,
+in the first perfection of young motherhood and beauty, a lovely,
+white-wrapped vision with straying golden hair; her sweet, rounded face
+pink with the flush of sleep, and the long lashes lying like little
+shadows on her cheek.
+
+Morris looked at her, and his doubts returned. What would Stella say?
+he thought to himself. It almost seemed to him that he could hear her
+voice, bidding him forbear; bidding him render unto his wife those
+things which were his wife’s: all honour, loyalty, and devotion. If he
+entered on this course could he still render them? Was there not such a
+thing as moral infidelity, and did not such exercises as he proposed
+partake of its nature? Perhaps, perhaps. On the whole it might be well
+to put all this behind him.
+
+It was three o’clock, he was tired out, and must sleep. The morning
+would be a more fitting time to ponder such weighty questions of the
+unwritten matrimonial law.
+
+In due course, the morning came—indeed, it was not far off—and with it
+wiser counsels. Mary woke early and talked about the baby, which was
+teething; indeed, so soon as the nurse was up she sent for it that the
+three of them might hold a consultation over a swollen gum. Also she
+discussed the date of their departure to Beaulieu, for again Christmas
+was near at hand; adding, however, somewhat to Morris’s relief, that
+unless the baby’s teeth went on better she really did not think that
+they could go, as it would be most unwise to take her out of the care
+of Dr. Charters and trust her to the tender mercies of foreign leeches.
+Morris agreed that it might be risky, and mentioned that in a letter
+which he had received from the concierge at Beaulieu a few days before,
+that functionary said that the place was overrun with measles and
+scarlatina.
+
+“Morris!” ejaculated Mary, sitting bolt upright in bed, “and you never
+told me! What is more, had it not been for baby’s teeth, which brought
+it to your mind, I believe you never would have told me, and I might
+have taken those unprotected little angels and—Oh! goodness, I can’t
+bear to think of it.”
+
+Morris muttered some apologies, whereon Mary, looking at him
+suspiciously through her falling hair, asked:
+
+“Why did you forget to show me the letter? Did you suppress it because
+you wanted to go to Beaulieu?”
+
+“No,” answered Morris with energy; “I hate Beaulieu. I forgot, that is
+all; because I have so much to think about, I suppose.”
+
+“So much? I thought that things were arranged now so that you had
+nothing at all to think about except how to spend your money and be
+happy with me, and adore the dear angels—Yes, I think that perhaps the
+nurse had better take her away. Touch the bell, will you? There, she’s
+gone. Keep her well wrapped up, and mind the draught, nurse.
+
+“No, don’t get up yet, Morris; I want to talk to you. You have been
+very gloomy of late, just like you used to be before you married,
+mooning about and staring at nothing. And what on earth do you do
+sitting up to all hours of the morning in that ghosty old chapel, where
+I wouldn’t be alone at twelve o’clock for a hundred pounds?”
+
+“I read,” said Morris.
+
+“Read? Read what? Novels?”
+
+“Sometimes,” answered Morris.
+
+“Oh, how can you tell such fibs? Why, that last book by Lady
+What’s-her-name which came in the Mudie box—the one they say is so
+improper—has been lying on your table for over two months, and you
+can’t tell me yet what it was the heroine did wrong. Morris, you are
+not inventing anything more, are you?”
+
+Here was an inspiration. “I admit that I am thinking of a little
+thing,” he said with diffidence, as though he were a budding poet with
+a sonnet on his mind.
+
+“A little thing? What little thing?”
+
+“Well, a new kind of aerophone designed to work uninfluenced by its
+twin.”
+
+“Well, and why shouldn’t it? Everything can’t have a twin—only I
+suppose there would be nothing to hear.”
+
+“That’s just the point,” replied Morris in his old professional manner.
+“I think there would be plenty to hear if only I could make the machine
+sensitive to the sounds and capable of reproducing them.”
+
+“What sounds?” asked Mary.
+
+“Well, if, for instance, one could successfully insulate it from the
+earth noises, the sounds which permeate space, and even those that have
+their origin upon the surfaces of the planets and perhaps of the more
+distant stars.”
+
+“Great heavens!” exclaimed Mary, “imagine a man who can want to let
+loose upon our poor little world every horrible noise that happens in
+the stars. Why, what under heaven would be the use of it?”
+
+“Well, one might communicate with them. Conceivably even one might hear
+the speech of their inhabitants, if they have any; always presuming
+that such an instrument could be made, and that it can be successfully
+insulated.”
+
+“Hear the speech of their inhabitants! That is your old idea, but you
+will never succeed, that’s one blessing. Morris, I suspect you; you
+want to stop at home here to work at this horrible new machine; to work
+for years, and years, and years without the slightest result. I suppose
+that you didn’t invent that about the measles and the scarlatina, did
+you? The two of them together sound rather clumsy, as though you might
+have done so.”
+
+“Not a bit, upon my honour,” answered Morris. “I will go and get the
+letter,” and, not sorry to escape from further examination, he went.
+
+Whether the cause were Mary’s doubts and reproaches, or the infant’s
+gums, or the working of his own conscience,—he felt that a man with a
+teething baby has no right to cultivate the occult. For quite a long
+period, a whole fortnight, indeed, Morris steadily refrained from any
+attempt to fulfil his dangerous ambition to “pierce the curtain of
+thick night.” Only he read and re-read Stella’s diary—that secret,
+fascinating work which in effect was building a wall between him and
+the healthy, common instincts of the world—till he knew whole pages of
+it by heart. Also he began a series of experiments whereof the object
+was to produce an improved and more sensitive aerophone.
+
+That any instrument which the intellect of man could produce would
+really succeed in conveying sounds which, if they exist at all, are
+born in the vast cosmic areas that envelope our earth and its
+atmosphere, he believed to be most improbable. Still, such a thing was
+possible, for what is not? Moreover, the world itself as it rushes on
+its fearful journey across the depths of space has doubtless many
+voices that have not yet been heard by the ears of men, some of which
+he might be able to discover and record. At the least he stood upon the
+threshold of a new knowledge, and now a great desire arose in him to
+pass its doors, if so he might, for who could tell what he would learn
+or see behind them? And by degrees, as he worked, always with one
+ulterior object in his mind, his scruples vanished or were mastered by
+the growth of his longing, till this became his ruling passion—to
+behold the spirit of Stella. Now he no longer reasoned with himself,
+but openly, nakedly, in his own heart gave his will over to the
+achievement of this monstrous and unnatural end.
+
+How was it to be done? That was now the sole dilemma which tormented
+him—as the possible methods of obtaining the drink he craves, or the
+drug that gives him peace and radiant visions, torment the dipsomaniac
+or the morphia victim in his guarded prison. He thought of his
+instruments, those magic machines with the working of which Stella had
+been familiar in her life. He even poured petitions into them in the
+hope that these might be delivered far beyond the ken of man, only to
+learn that he was travelling a road which led to a wall impassable; the
+wall that, for the lack of a better name, we call Death, which bars the
+natural from the spiritual.
+
+Wonderful as were his electrical appliances, innumerable as might be
+their impalpable emanations, insoluble as seemed the mystery of their
+power of catching and transmitting sounds by the agency of ether, they
+were still physical appliances producing physical effects in obedience
+to the laws of nature. But what he sought lay beyond nature and was
+subject to some rule of which he did not even know the elements, and
+much less the axioms. Herein his instruments, or indeed, any that man
+could make, were as futile and as useless as would be the prayers of an
+archbishop addressed to a Mumbo-jumbo in a fetish house. The link was
+wanting; there was, and could be, no communication between the two. The
+invisible ether which he had subdued to his purposes was still a
+constituent part of the world of matter; he must discover the spiritual
+ether, and discover also the animating force by which it might be
+influenced.
+
+Now he formed a new plan—to reach the dead by his petitions, by the
+invocation of his own spirit. “Seek me and you shall find me,” she had
+said. So he sought and called in bitterness and concentration of heart,
+but still he did not find. Stella did not come.
+
+He was in despair. She had promised, and her promise seemed to be
+broken. Then it was that in turning the pages of her diary he came
+across a passage that had escaped him, or which he had forgotten. It
+ran thus:
+
+“In the result I have learned this, that we cannot compel the departed
+to appear. Even if they hear us they will not, or are not suffered to
+obey. If we would behold them we must create the power of vision in our
+own natures. They are about us always, only we cannot see or feel their
+presence; our senses are too gross. To succeed we must refine our
+senses until they acquire an aptitude beyond the natural. Then without
+any will or any intervention on their parts, we may triumph, perhaps
+even when _they_ do not know that we have triumphed.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+STELLA COMES
+
+
+Now, by such arts as are known to those who have studied mysticism in
+any of its protean forms, Morris set himself to attempt communication
+with the unseen. In their practice these arts are as superlatively
+unwholesome as in their result, successful or not, they are unnatural.
+Also, they are very ancient. The Chaldeans knew them, and the magicians
+who stood before Pharaoh knew them. To the early Christian anchorites
+and to the gnostics they were familiar. In one shape or another,
+ancient wonder-workers, Scandinavian and mediaeval seers, modern
+Spiritualists, classical interpreters of oracles, Indian fakirs, savage
+witch-doctors and medicine men, all submitted or submit themselves to
+the yoke of the same rule in the hope of attaining an end which,
+however it may vary in its manifestations, is identical in essence.
+
+This is the rule: to beat down the flesh and its instincts and nurture
+the spirit, its aspirations and powers. And this is the end—to escape
+before the time, if only partially and at intervals, into an atmosphere
+of vision true or false, where human feet were meant to find no road,
+and the trammelled minds of men no point of outlook. That such an
+atmosphere exists even materialists would hesitate to deny, for it is
+proved by the whole history of the moral world, and especially by that
+of the religions of the world, their founders, their prophets and their
+exponents, many of whom have breathed its ether, and pronounced it the
+very breath of life. Their feet have walked the difficult path;
+standing on those forbidden peaks they have scanned the dim plains and
+valleys of the unseen, and made report of the dreams and shapes that
+haunt them. Then the busy hordes of men beneath for a moment pause to
+listen and are satisfied.
+
+“Lo, here is Truth,” they cry, “now we may cease from troubling.” So
+for a while they rest till others answer, “Nay, _this_ is Truth; our
+teacher told it us from yonder mountain, the only Holy Hill.” And yet
+others fall upon them and slay them, shouting, “Neither of these is
+Truth. She dwells not among the precipices, but in the valley; there we
+have heard her accents.”
+
+And still from cliff to cliff and along the secret vales echoes the
+voice of Truth; and still upon the snow-wreathed peaks and across the
+space of rolling ocean, and even among the populous streets of men,
+veiled, mysterious, and changeful, her shape is seen by those who have
+trained themselves or been inspired to watch and hear. But no two see
+the same shape, and no two hear the same voice, since to each she wears
+a different countenance, and speaks with another tongue. For Truth is
+as the sand of the shore for number, and as the infinite hues of the
+rainbow for variety. Yet the sand is ground out of one mother rock, and
+all the colours of earth and air are born of a single sun.
+
+So, practising the ancient rites and mysteries, and bowing himself to
+the ancient law whose primeval principles every man and woman may find
+graven upon the tablets of their solitary heart, Morris set himself to
+find that truth, which for him was hid in the invisible soul of Stella,
+the soul which he desired to behold and handle, even if the touch and
+sight should slay him.
+
+Day by day he worked, for as many hours as he could make his own, at
+the details of his new experiments. These in themselves were
+interesting, and promised even to be fruitful; but that was not his
+object, or, at any rate, his principal object in pursuing them with
+such an eager passion of research. The talk and hazardings which had
+passed between himself and Stella notwithstanding, both reason and
+experience had taught him already that all instruments made by the hand
+of man were useless to break a way into the dwellings of the departed.
+A day might come when they would enable the inhabitants of the earth to
+converse with the living denizens of the most distant stars; but never,
+never with the dead. He laboured because of the frame of thought his
+toil brought with it, but still more that he might be alone: that he
+might be able to point to his soiled hands, the shabby clothes which he
+wore when working with chemicals or at the forge, the sheets of paper
+covered with half-finished and maddening calculations, as an excuse why
+he should not be taken out, or, worse still, dragged from his home to
+stay for nights, or perhaps whole weeks, in other places. Even his
+wife, he felt, would relent at the sight of those figures, and would
+fly from the odour of chemicals.
+
+In fact, Mary did both, for she hated what she called “smells,” and a
+place strewn with hot irons and bottles of acids, which, as she
+discovered, if disturbed burnt both dress and fingers. The sight also
+of algebraic characters pursuing each other across quires of paper,
+like the grotesque forces of some broken, impish army, filled her
+indolent mind with a wondering admiration that was akin to fear. The
+man, she reflected, who could force those cabalistic symbols to reveal
+anything worth knowing must indeed be a genius, and one who deserved
+not to be disturbed, even for a tea party.
+
+Although she disapproved deeply of these renewed studies, such was
+Mary’s secret thought. Whether it would have sufficed alone to persuade
+her to permit them is another matter, since her instinct, keen and
+subtle as any of Morris’s appliances, warned her that in them lay
+danger to her home and happiness. But just then, as it happened, there
+were other matters to occupy her mind. The baby became seriously ill
+over its teething, and, other infantile complications following, for
+some weeks it was doubtful whether she would survive.
+
+Now Mary belonged to the class of woman which is generally known as
+“motherly,” and adored her offspring almost to excess. Consequently for
+those weeks she found plenty to think about without troubling herself
+over-much as to Morris and his experiments. For these same reasons,
+perhaps, she scarcely noticed, seated as she was some distance away at
+the further end of the long table, how very ethereal her husband’s
+appetite had become, or that, although he took wine as usual, it was a
+mere pretence, since he never emptied his glass. The most loving of
+women can scarcely be expected to consider a man’s appetite when that
+of a baby is in question, or, while the child wastes, to take note
+whether or no its father is losing flesh. Lastly, as regards the hours
+at which he came to bed, being herself a sound sleeper Mary had long
+since ceased to interest herself about them, on the wise principle that
+so long as she was not expected to sit up it was no affair of hers.
+
+Thus it happened that Morris worked and meditated by day, and by
+night—ah! who that has not tried to climb this difficult and endless
+Jacob’s ladder resting upon the earth and losing itself far, far away
+in the blue of heaven above, can understand what he did by night? But
+those who have stood even on its lowest rung will guess, and—for the
+rest it does not matter.
+
+He advanced; he knew that he advanced, that the gross wall of sense was
+wearing thin beneath the attacks of his out-thrown soul; that even if
+they were not drawn, from time to time the black curtains swung aside
+in the swift, pure breath of his continual prayers. Moreover, the dead
+drew near to him at moments, or he drew near the dead. Even in his
+earthly brain he could feel their awful presence as wave by wave soft,
+sweet pulses of impression beat upon him and passed through him.
+Through and through him they passed till his brow ached, and every
+nerve of his body tingled, as though it had become the receiver of some
+mysterious current that stirred his blood with what was not akin to it,
+and summoned to his mind strange memories and foresights. Visions came
+also that he could not define, to slip from his frantic grasp like wet
+sand through the fingers of a drowning man. More and more frequently,
+and with an ever increasing completeness, did this unearthly air,
+blowing from a shore no human foot has trod, breathe through his being
+and possess him, much as some faint wind which we cannot feel may be
+seen to possess an aspen tree so that it turns white and shivers when
+every other natural thing is still. And as that aspen turns white and
+shivers in this thin, impalpable air, so did his spirit blanch and
+quiver with joy and dread mingled mysteriously in the cup of his
+expectant soul.
+
+Again and again those sweet, yet sickening waves flowed over him, to
+leave him shaken and unnerved. At first they were rare visitors, single
+clouds floating across his calm, coming he knew not whence and
+vanishing he knew not whither. Now they drove in upon him like some
+scud, ample yet broken, before the wind, till at whiles, as it were, he
+could not see the face of the friendly, human sun. Then he was like a
+traveller lost in the mist upon a mountain top, sure of nothing,
+feeling precipices about him, hearing voices calling him, seeing white
+arms stretched out to lead him, yet running forward gladly because amid
+so many perils a fate was in his feet.
+
+Now, too, they came with an actual sense of wind. He would wake up at
+night even by his wife’s side and feel this unholy breath blowing
+ice-cold on his brow and upon the backs of his outstretched hands. Yet
+if he lit a candle it had no power to stir its flame; yes, while it
+still blew sharp upon him the flame of the candle did not move. Then
+the wind would cease, and within him the intangible, imponderable power
+would arise, and the voices would speak like the far, far murmur of a
+stream, and the thoughts which he could not weigh or interpret would
+soak into his being like some strange dew, and, soft, soft as falling
+snow, invisible feet would tread the air about him, till of a sudden a
+door in his brain seemed to shut, and he woke to the world again.
+
+Every force is subject to laws. Even if they were but the emanations of
+an incipient madness which like all else have their origins, destinies,
+and forms, these possessing vapours were a force, which in time Morris,
+whose mind from a lifelong training was scientific and methodical,
+accustomed, moreover, to struggle for dominion over elements unknown or
+imperfectly appreciated, learned to regulate if not entirely to
+control. Their visits were pleasant to him, a delight even; but to
+experience this joy to the utmost he discovered that their power must
+be concentrated; that if the full effect was to be produced this moral
+morphia must be taken in strong doses, and at stated intervals,
+sufficient space being allowed between them to give his mental being
+time to recuperate. Science has proved that even the molecules of a
+wire can grow fatigued by the constant passage of electricity, or the
+edge of a razor by too frequent stropping. Both of them, to be
+effective, to do their utmost service, must have periods of rest.
+
+Here, then, his will came to his aid, for he found that by its strong,
+concentrated exertion he was enabled both to shut off the sensations or
+to excite them. Another thing he found also—that after a while it was
+impossible to do without them. For a period the anticipation of their
+next visit would buoy him up; but if it were baulked too long, then
+reaction set in, and with it the horrors of the Pit.
+
+This was the first stage of his insanity—or of his vision.
+
+Dear as such manifestations might be to him, in time he wearied of
+them; these hints which but awakened his imagination, these fantastic
+spiced meats which, without staying it, only sharpened his spiritual
+appetite. More than ever he longed to see and to know, to make
+acquaintance with the actual presence, whereof they were but the
+forerunners, the cold blasts that go before the storm, the vague,
+mystical draperies which veiled the unearthly goddess at whose shrine
+he was a worshipper. He desired the full fierce fury of the tempest,
+the blinding flash of the lightning, the heavy hiss of the rain, the
+rush of the winds bursting on him from the four horizons; he desired
+the naked face of his goddess.
+
+And she came—or he acquired the power to see her, whichever it might
+be. She came suddenly, unexpectedly, completely, as a goddess should.
+
+It was on Christmas Eve, at night, the anniversary of Stella’s death
+four years before. Morris and his wife were alone at the Abbey, as the
+Colonel had gone for a fortnight or so to Beaulieu, just to keep the
+house aired, as he explained. Also Lady Rawlins was there with her
+husband, the evil-tempered man who by a single stroke of sickness had
+been converted into a babbling imbecile, harmless as a babe, and amused
+for the most part with such toys as are given to babes. She, so Morris
+understood, had intimated that Sir Jonah was failing, really failing
+quickly, and that in her friendlessness at a foreign place, especially
+at Christmas time, she would be thankful to have the comfort of an old
+friend’s presence. This the old friend, who, having been back from town
+for a whole month, was getting rather bored with Monksland and the sick
+baby, determined to vouchsafe, explaining that he knew that young
+married people liked to be left to each other now and again, especially
+when they were worried with domestic troubles. Lady Rawlins was foolish
+and fat, but, as the Colonel remembered, she was fond. Where, indeed,
+could another woman be found who would endure so much scientific
+discipline and yet be thankful? Also, within a few weeks, after the
+expected demise of Jonah, she would be wondrous wealthy—that he knew.
+Therefore it seemed that the matter was worth consideration—and a
+journey to Beaulieu.
+
+So the Colonel went, and Morris, more and more possessed by his
+monomania, was glad that he had gone. His absence gave him greater
+opportunities of loneliness; it was now no longer necessary that he
+should sit at night smoking with his father, or, rather, watching him
+smoke at the expense of so many precious hours when he should be up and
+doing.
+
+Morris and Mary dined tête-à-tête that evening, but almost immediately
+after dinner she had gone to the nurseries. The baby was now threatened
+with convulsions, and a trained nurse had been installed. But, as Mary
+did not in the least trust the nurse, who, according to her account,
+was quite unaccustomed to children, she insisted upon dogging that
+functionary’s footsteps. Therefore, Morris saw little of her.
+
+It was one o’clock on Christmas morning, or more. Hours ago Morris had
+gone though his rites, the ritual that he had invented or discovered—in
+its essence, simple and pathetic enough—whereby he strove to bring
+himself to the notice of the dead, and to fit himself to see or hear
+the dead. Such tentative mysticism as served his turn need not be
+written down, but its substance can be imagined by many. Then, through
+an exercise of his will, he had invoked the strange, trance-like state
+which has been described. The soft waves flowing from an unknown source
+had beat upon his brain, and with them came the accustomed phenomena;
+the sense of some presence near, impending, yet impotent; suggesting by
+analogy and effect the misdirected efforts of a blind person seeking
+something in a room, or the painful attempt of one almost deaf,
+striving to sift out words from a confused murmur of sounds. The
+personality of Stella seemed to pervade him, yet he could see nothing,
+could hear nothing. The impression might be from within, not from
+without. Perhaps, after all, it was nothing but a dream, a miasma, a
+mirage, drawn by his own burning thought from the wastes and marshes of
+his mind peopled with illusive hopes and waterlogged by memories. Or it
+might be true and real; as yet he could not be certain of its origin.
+
+The fit passed, delightful in its overpowering emptiness, but
+unsatisfying as all that had gone before it, and left him weak. For a
+while Morris crouched by the fire, for he had grown cold, and could not
+think accurately. Then his vital, human strength returned, and, as
+seemed to him to be fitting upon this night of all nights, he began one
+by one to recall the events of that day four years ago, when Stella was
+still a living woman.
+
+The scene in the Dead Church, the agonies of farewell; he summoned them
+detail by detail, word by word; her looks, the changes of her
+expression, the movements of her hands and eyes and lips; he counted
+and pictured each precious souvenir. The sound of her last sentences
+also, as the blind, senseless aerophone had rendered them just before
+the end, one by one they were repeated in his brain. There stood the
+very instrument; but, alas! it was silent now, its twin lay buried in
+the sea with her who had worked it.
+
+Morris grew weary, the effort of memory was exhausting, and after it he
+was glad to think of nothing. The fire flickered, the clear light of
+the electric lamps shone upon the hard, sixteenth-century faces of the
+painted angels in the ancient roof; without the wind soughed, and
+through it rose the constant, sullen roar of the sea.
+
+Tired, disappointed, unhappy, and full of self-reproaches, for when the
+madness was not on him he knew his sin, Morris sank into a doze. Now
+music crept softly into his sleep; sweet, thrilling music, causing him
+to open his eyes and smile. It was Christmas Eve, and doubtless he
+heard the village waifs.
+
+Morris looked up arousing himself to listen, and lo! there before him,
+unexpected and ineffable, was Stella; Stella as she appeared that night
+on which she had sung to him, just as she finished singing, indeed,
+when he stood for a while in the faint moonlight, the flame of
+inspiration still flickering in those dark eyes and the sweet lips
+drawn down a little as though she were about to weep.
+
+The sight did not astonish him, at the moment he never imagined even
+then that this could be her spirit, that his long labours in a soil no
+man was meant to till had issued into harvest. Surely it was a dream,
+nothing but a dream. He felt no tremors, no cold wind stirred his hair;
+his heart did not stand still, nor his breath come short. Why should a
+man fear so beautiful a dream? Yet, vaguely enough, he wished that it
+might last forever, for it was sweet to see her so—as she had been. As
+she had been—yet, was she ever thus? Surely some wand of change had
+touched her. She was beautiful, but had she worn that beauty? And those
+eyes! Could any such have shone in the face of woman?
+
+“Stella,” he whispered, and from roof and walls crept back the echo of
+his voice. He rose and went towards her. She had vanished. He returned,
+and there she was.
+
+“Speak!” he muttered; “speak!” But no word came, only the lovely
+changeless eyes shone on and watched him.
+
+Listen! Music seemed to float about the room, such music as he had
+never heard—even Stella could not make the like. The air was full of
+it, the night without was full of it, millions of voices took up the
+chant, and from far away, note by note, mighty organs and silver
+trumpets told its melody.
+
+His brain reeled. In the ocean of those unimagined harmonies it was
+tossed like a straw upon a swirling river, tossed and overwhelmed.
+
+Slowly, very slowly, as the straw might be sucked into the heart of a
+whirlpool, his soul was drawn down into blackness. It shuddered, it was
+afraid; this vision of a whirlpool haunted him. He could see the narrow
+funnel of its waters, smooth, shining like jet, unspecked by foam,
+solid to all appearances; but, as he was aware, alive, every atom of
+them, instinct with some frightful energy, the very face of force—and
+in the teeth of it, less than a dead leaf, himself.
+
+Down he went, down, and still above him shone the beautiful, pitying,
+changeless eyes; and still round him echoed that strange, searching
+music. The eyes receded, the music became faint, and then—blackness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+DREAMS AND THE SLEEP
+
+
+The Christmas Day which followed this strange night proved the happiest
+that Morris could ever remember to have spent since his childhood. In
+his worldly circumstances of course he was oppressed by none of the
+everyday worries which at this season are the lot of most—no duns came
+to trouble him, nor through lack of means was he forced to turn any
+beggar from his door. Also the baby was much better, and Mary’s spirits
+were consequently radiant. Never, indeed, had she been more lovely and
+charming than when that morning she presented him with a splendid gold
+chronometer to take the place of the old silver watch which was his
+mother’s as a girl, and that he had worn all his life. Secretly he
+sorrowed over parting with that familiar companion in favour of its new
+eighty-guinea rival, although it was true that it always lost ten
+minutes a day, and sometimes stopped altogether. But there was no help
+for it; so he kissed Mary and was grateful.
+
+Moreover, the day was beautiful. In the morning they walked to church
+through the Abbey plantations, which run for nearly half a mile along
+the edge of the cliff. The rime lay thick upon the pines and firs—every
+little needle had its separate coat of white whereon the sun’s rays
+glistened. The quiet sea, too, shone like some gigantic emerald, and in
+the sweet stillness the song of a robin perched upon the bending bough
+of a young poplar sounded pure and clear.
+
+Yet it was not this calm and plenty, this glittering ocean flecked with
+white sails, and barred by delicate lines of smoke, this blue and happy
+sky, nor all the other good things that were given to him in such
+abundance, which steeped his heart in Sabbath rest. Although he sought
+no inspiration from such drugs, and, indeed, was a stranger to them,
+rather was his joy the joy of the opium-eater while the poison works;
+the joy of him who after suffering long nights of pain has found their
+antidote, and perhaps for the first time appreciates the worth of
+peace, however empty. His troubled heart had ceased its striving, his
+wrecked nerves were still, his questionings had been answered, his ends
+were attained; he had drunk of the divine cup which he desired, and its
+wine flowed through him. The dead had visited him, and he had tasted of
+the delight which lies hid in death. On that day he felt as though
+nothing could hurt him any more, nothing could even move him. The angry
+voices, the wars, the struggles, the questionings—all the things which
+torment mankind; what did they matter? He had forced the lock and
+broken the bar; if only for a little while, the door had opened, and he
+had seen that which he desired to see and sought with all his soul, and
+with the wondrous harvest of this pure, inhuman passion, that owes
+nothing to sex, or time, or earth, he was satisfied at last.
+
+“Why did you look so strange in church?” asked Mary as they walked
+home, and her voice echoed in the spaces of his void mind as words echo
+in an empty hall.
+
+His thoughts were wandering far, and with difficulty he drew them back,
+as birds tied by the foot are drawn back and, still fluttering to be
+free, brought home to the familiar cage.
+
+“Strange, dear?” he answered; “did I look strange?”
+
+“Yes; like a man in a dream or the face of a saint being comfortably
+martyred in a picture. Morris, I believe that you are not well. I will
+speak to the doctor. He must give you a tonic, or something for your
+liver. Really, to see you and that old mummy Mr. Fregelius staring at
+each other while he murmured away about the delights of the world to
+come, and how happy we ought to be at the thought of getting there,
+made me quite uncomfortable.”
+
+“Why? Why, dear?” asked Morris, vacantly.
+
+“Why? Because the old man with his pale face and big eyes looked more
+like an astral body than a healthy human being; if I met him in his
+surplice at night, I should think he was a ghost, and upon my word, you
+are catching the same expression. That comes of your being so much
+together. Do be a little more human and healthy. Lose your temper;
+swear at the cook like your father; admire Jane Rose’s pretty bonnet,
+or her pretty face; take to horse-racing, do anything that is natural,
+even if it is wicked. Anything that doesn’t make one think of graves,
+and stars, and infinities, and souls who died last night; of all of
+which no doubt we shall have plenty in due season.”
+
+“All right, dear,” answered Morris, with a fine access of forced
+cheerfulness, “we will have some champagne for dinner and play picquet
+after it.”
+
+“Champagne! What’s the use of champagne when you only pretend to drink
+it and fill up the glass with soda-water? Picquet! You hate it, and so
+do I; and it is silly losing large sums of money to each other which we
+never mean to pay. That isn’t the real thing, there’s no life in that.
+Oh, Morris, if you love me, do cultivate some human error. It is
+terrible to have a husband in whom there is nothing to reform.”
+
+“I will try, love,” said Morris, earnestly.
+
+“Yes,” she replied, with a gloomy shake of the head, “but you won’t
+succeed. When Mrs. Roberts told me the other day that she was afraid
+her husband was taking to drink because he went out walking too often
+with that pretty widow from North Cove—the one with the black and gold
+bonnet whom they say things about—I answered that I quite envied her,
+and she didn’t in the least understand what I meant. But I understand,
+although I can’t express myself.”
+
+“I give up the drink,” said Morris; “it disagrees; but perhaps you
+might introduce me to the widow. She seems rather attractive.”
+
+“I will,” answered Mary, stamping her foot. “She’s a horrid, vulgar
+little thing; but I’ll ask her to tea, or to stay, and anything, if she
+can only make you look rather less disembodied.”
+
+That night the champagne appeared, and, feeling his wife’s eyes upon
+him, Morris swallowed two whole glasses, and in consequence was quite
+cheerful, for he had eaten little—circumstances under which champagne
+exhilarates—for a little while. Then they went into the drawing-room
+and talked themselves into silence about nothing in particular, after
+which Morris began to wander round the room and contemplate the
+furniture as though he had never seen it before.
+
+“What are you fidgeting about?” asked Mary. “Morris, you remind me of
+somebody who wants to slip away to an assignation, which in your case
+is absurd. I wish your father were back, I really do; I should be glad
+to listen to his worst and longest story. It isn’t often that I sit
+with you, so it would be kinder if you didn’t look so bored. I’m cross;
+I’m going to bed. I hope you will spend a pleasant night in the chapel
+with your thoughts and your instruments and the ghosts of the old
+Abbots. But please come into my room quietly; I don’t like being woke
+up after three in the morning, as I was yesterday.” And she went,
+slamming the door behind her.
+
+Morris went also with hanging head and guilty step to his accustomed
+haunt in the old chapel. He knew that he was doing wrong; he could
+sympathise with Mary’s indignation. Yet he was unable to resist, he
+must see again, must drink once more of that heavenly cup.
+
+And he failed. Was it the champagne? Was it Mary’s sharp words which
+had ruffled him? Was it that he had not allowed enough time for the
+energy which came from him enabling her to appear before his mortal
+eyes, to gather afresh in the life-springs of his own nature? Or was
+she also angry with him?
+
+At least he failed. The waves came indeed, and the cold wind blew, but
+there was no sound of music, and no vision. Again and again he strove
+to call it up—to fancy that he saw. It was useless, and at last, weary,
+broken, but filled with a mad irritation such as might be felt by a
+hungry man who sees food which he cannot touch, or by a jealous lover
+who beholds her that should have been his bride take another husband
+before his eyes, he crept away to such rest as he could win.
+
+He awoke, ill, wretched, and unsatisfied, but wisdom had come to him
+with sleep. He must not fail again, it was too wearing; he must prepare
+himself according to the rules which he had laid down. Also he must
+conciliate his wife, so that she did not speak angrily to him, and thus
+disturb his calm of mind. Broken waters mirror nothing; if his soul was
+to be the glass in which that beloved spirit might appear, it must be
+still and undisturbed. If? Then was she built up in his imagination, or
+did he really see her with his eyes? He could not tell, and after all
+it mattered little so long as he did see her.
+
+He grew cunning—in such circumstances a common symptom—affecting a
+“bonhomie,” a joviality of demeanour, indeed, which was rather
+overdone. He suggested that Mary should ask some people to tea, and
+twice he went out shooting, a sport which he had almost abandoned. Only
+when she wanted to invite certain guests to stay, he demurred a little,
+on account of the baby, but so cleverly that she never suspected him of
+being insincere. In short, as he could attain his unholy end in no
+other way, Morris entered on a career of mild deception, designed to
+prevent his wife from suspecting him of she knew not what. His conduct
+was that of a man engaged in an intrigue. In his case, however, the
+possible end of his ill-doing was not the divorce-court, but an asylum,
+or so some observers would have anticipated. Yet did man ever adore a
+mistress so fatal and destroying as this poor shadow of the dead which
+he desired?
+
+It was not until New Year’s Eve that Stella came again. Once more
+enervated and exhausted by the waves, Morris sank into a doze whence,
+as before, he was awakened by the sound of heavenly music to which, on
+this night, was added the scent of perfume. Then he opened his eyes—to
+behold Stella. As she had been at first, so she was now, only more
+lovely—a hundred times lovelier than the imagination can paint, or the
+pen can tell. Here was nothing pale or deathlike, no sheeted,
+melancholy spectre, but a radiant being whose garment was the light,
+and whose eyes glowed like the heart of some deep jewel. About her
+rolled a vision of many colours, such hues as the rainbow has fell upon
+her face and about her hair. And yet it was the same Stella that he had
+known made perfect and spiritual and, beyond all imagining, divine.
+
+Once more he addressed—implored her, and once more no answer came; nor
+did her face change, or that wondrous smile pass from her lips into the
+gravity of her eyes. This, at least, was sure; either that she no
+longer had any understanding knowledge of his earthly tongue, or that
+its demonstration was to her a thing forbidden. What was she then? That
+double of the body which the Egyptians called the _Ka_, or the soul
+itself, the πνεῦμα, no eidolon, but the immortal _ego_, clothed in
+human semblance made divine?
+
+Why was there no answer? Because his speech was too gross for her to
+hearken to? Why did she not speak? Because his ears were deaf? Was this
+an illusion? No! a thousand times. When he approached she vanished, but
+what of it? He was mortal, she a spirit; they might not mix.
+
+Yet in her own method she did speak, spoke to his soul, bidding the
+scales fall from its eyes so that it might see. And it saw what human
+imagination could not fashion. Behold those gardens, those groves that
+hang upon the measureless mountain face, and the white flowers which
+droop in tresses from the dark bough of yonder towering poplar tree,
+and the jewelled serpent nestling at its root.
+
+Oh! they are gone, and when the flame-eyed Figure smote, the vast,
+barring, precipices fall apart and the road is smooth and open.
+
+How far? A million miles? No, twenty thousand millions. Look, yonder
+shines the destined Star; now come! So, it is reached. Nay, do not stop
+to stare. Look again! out through utter space to where the low light
+glows. So, come once more. The suns float past like windblown golden
+dust—like the countless lamps of boats upon the bosom of a summer sea.
+There, beneath, lies the very home of Power. Those springing sparks of
+light? They are the ineffable Decrees passing outward through infinity.
+That sound? It is the voice of worlds which worship.
+
+Look now! Out yonder see the flaming gases gather and cohere. They burn
+out and the great globe blackens. Cool mists wrap it, rains fall, seas
+collect, continents arise. There is life, behold it, various and
+infinite. And hearken to the whisper of this great universe, one tiny
+note in that song of praise you heard but now. Yes, the life dies, the
+ball grows black again; it is the carcase of a world. How long have you
+watched it? For an hour, a breath; but, as you judge time, some ten
+thousand million years. Sleep now, you are weary; later you shall
+understand.
+
+Thus the wraith of Stella spoke to his soul in visions. Presently, with
+drumming ears and eyes before which strange lights seemed to play,
+Morris staggered from the place, so weak, indeed, that he could
+scarcely thrust one foot before the other. Yet his heart was filled
+with a mad joy, and his brain was drunken with the deep cup of a
+delight and a knowledge that have seldom been given to man.
+
+On other nights the visions were different. Thus he saw the spirits of
+men going out and returning, and among them his own slumbering spirit
+that a vast and shadowy Stella bore in her arms as a mother bears a
+babe.
+
+He saw also the Vision of Numbers. All the infinite inhabitants of all
+the infinite worlds passed before him, marching through the ages to
+some end unknown. Once, too, his mind was opened, and he understood the
+explanation of Evil and the Reason of Things. He shouted at their
+glorious simplicity—shouted for joy; but lo! before he rose from his
+chair they were forgotten.
+
+Other visions there were without count. Also they would mix and fall
+into new patterns, like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. There was
+no end to them, and each was lovelier, or grander, or fraught with a
+more sweet entrancement, than the last. And still she who brought them,
+she who opened his eyes, who caused his ears to hear and his soul to
+see; she whom he worshipped; his heart’s twin, she who had sworn
+herself to him on earth, and was there waiting to fulfil the oath to
+all eternity; the woman who had become a spirit, that spirit that had
+taken the shape of a woman—there she stood and smiled and changed, and
+yet was changeless. And oh! what did it matter if his life was draining
+from him, and oh! to die at those glittering feet, with that perfumed
+breath stirring in his hair! What did he seek more when Death would be
+the great immortal waking, when from twilight he passed out to light?
+What more when in that dawn, awful yet smiling, she should be his and
+he hers, and they twain would be one, with thought that answered
+thought, since it was the same thought?
+
+There is much that might be told—enough to fill many pages. It would be
+easy, for instance, to set out long lists of the entrancing dreams
+which were the soul speech of the spirit of Stella, and to some extent,
+to picture them. Also the progress of the possession of Morris might be
+described and the student of his history shown, step by step, how the
+consummation that in her life days Stella had feared, overtook him; how
+“the thing got the mastery of him,” and he became “unfitted for his
+work on earth!” How, too, his body wasted and his spiritual part
+developed, till every physical sight and deed became a cause of
+irritation to his new nature, and at times even a source of active
+suffering.
+
+Thus an evil odour, the spectacle of pain, the cry of grief, the sight
+of the carcases of dead animals, to take a few examples out of very
+many, were agonies to his abnormal, exasperated nerves. Nor did it stop
+there, since the misfortune which threatened Stella when at length she
+had succeeded in becoming bodily conscious of the presence of the
+eidolon of her sister, and “heard discords among the harmonies” of the
+rich music of her violin, overtook him also.
+
+Thus, for instance, in the scent of the sweetest rose at times Morris
+would discover something frightful; even the guise of tender childhood
+ceased to be lovely in his eyes, for now he could see and feel the
+budding human brute beneath. Worse still, his beautiful companion,
+Mary, fair and gracious as she was, became almost repulsive to him, so
+that he shrank from her as in common life some delicate-nurtured man
+might shrink from a full-bodied, coarse-tongued young fishwife. Even
+her daily need of food, which was healthy though not excessive,
+disgusted him to witness,—he who was out of touch with all wholesome
+appetites of earth, whose distorted nature sought an alien rest and
+solace.
+
+Of Mary herself, also, it might be narrated how, after first mocking at
+the thought and next thrusting it away, by degrees she grew to
+appreciate the reality of the mysterious foreign influence which
+reigned in her home. It might be told how in that spiritual atmosphere,
+shedding its sleepy indolence, her own spirit awoke and grew conscious
+and far-seeing, till impressions and hints which in the old days she
+would have set aside as idle, became for her pregnant with light and
+meaning. Then at last her eyes were opened, and understanding much and
+guessing more she began to watch. The attitude of the Colonel also
+could be studied, and how he grew first suspicious, then sarcastic, and
+at last thoroughly alarmed, even to his ultimate evacuation of the
+Abbey House, detailed at length.
+
+But to the chronicler of these doings and of their unusual issues at
+any rate, it appears best to resist a natural temptation; to deny the
+desire to paint such closing scenes in petto. Much more does this
+certainty hold of their explanation. Enough has been said to enable
+those in whom the spark of understanding may burn, to discover by its
+light how much is left unsaid. Enough has been hinted at to teach how
+much there is still to guess. At least few will deny that some things
+are best abandoned to the imagination. To attempt to drag the last veil
+from the face of Truth in any of her thousand shapes is surely a folly
+predoomed to failure. From the beginning she has been a veiled
+divinity, and veiled, however thinly, she must and will remain. Also,
+even were it possible thus to rob her, would not her bared eyes
+frighten us?
+
+It was late, very late, and there, pale and haggard in the low light of
+the fire, once again Morris stood pleading with the radiant image which
+his heart revealed.
+
+“Oh, speak! speak!” he moaned aloud. “I weary of those pictures. They
+are too vast; they crush me. I grow weak. I have no strength left to
+fight against the power of this fearful life that is discovered. I
+cannot bear this calm everlasting life. It sucks out my mortality as
+mists are sucked up by the sun. Become human. Speak. Let me touch your
+hand. Or be angry. Only cease smiling that awful smile, and take those
+solemn eyes out of my heart. Oh, my darling, my darling! remember that
+I am still a man. In pity answer me before I die.”
+
+Then a low and awful cry, and Morris turned to behold Mary his wife. At
+last she had seen and heard, and read his naked heart. At last she knew
+him—mad, and in his madness, most unfaithful—a man who loved one dead
+and dragged her down to earth for company.
+
+Look! there in his charmed and secret sight stood the spirit, and
+there, over against her, the mortal woman, and he—wavering—he lost
+between the two.
+
+Certainly he had been sick a long while, since the sun-ray touched the
+face of the old abbot carved in that corner of the room to support the
+hammer beam. This, as he had known from a child, only chanced at
+mid-summer. Mary was bending over him, but he was astonished to find
+that he could sit up and move. Surely, then, his mind must have been
+more ill than his body.
+
+“Hush!” she said, “drink this, dear, and go to sleep.”
+
+It was a week after, and Morris had told her all, the kind and gentle
+wife who was so good to him, who understood and could even smile as he
+explained, in faltering, shame-heavy words. And he had sworn for her
+sake and his children’s sake, that he would put away this awful
+traffic, and seek such fellowship no more.
+
+Nor for six months did he seek it; not till the winter returned. Then,
+when his body was strong again, the ravening hunger of his soul
+overcame him, and, lest he should go mad or die of longing, Morris
+broke his oath—as she was sure he would.
+
+One night Mary missed her husband from her side, and creeping down in
+the grey of the morning, she found him sitting in his chair in the
+chapel workshop, smiling strangely, but cold and dead. Then her heart
+seemed to break, for she loved him. Yet, remembering her promises, and
+the dust whereof he was made, and the fate to which he had been
+appointed, she forgave him all.
+
+The search renewed, or the fruit of some fresh discovery—what he sought
+or what he saw, who knows?—had killed him.
+
+Or perhaps Stella had seemed to speak at last and the word he heard her
+say was _Come!_
+
+This, then, is the end of the story of Stella Fregelius upon earth, and
+this the writing on a leaf torn from the book of three human destinies.
+Remember, only one leaf.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STELLA FREGELIUS ***
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